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THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY 


THE MASTER 
OF BALLANTRAE 

A WINTER’S TALE 

BY 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

i* 

WITH INTRODUCTION BY 

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY, Ph.D. 

EDITOR OF “ THE LITERARY REVIEW ” OF THE NEW YORK EVENING POST AND 
MEMBER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, YALE UNIVERSITY 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


NEW YORK 


CHICAGO 


BOSTON 



Copyright, 1922, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Printed in the United States of America 

A 


TO 

SIR PERCY FLORENCE AND LADY SHELLEY 

There is a tale which extends over many years and travels into 
many countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer 
began, continued it, and concluded it among distant and diverse 
scenes. Above all, he was much upon the sea. The character 
and fortune of the fraternal enemies, the hall and shrubbery of 
Durrisdeer, the problem of Mackellar’s homespun and how to 
shape it for superior flights; these were his company on deck in 
many star-reflecting harbours, ran often in his mind at sea to the 
tune of slatting canvas, and were dismissed (something of the 
suddenest) on the approach of squalls. It is my hope that these 
surroundings of its manufacture may to some degree find favour 
for my story with sea-farers and sea-lovers like yourselves. 

And at least here is a dedication from a great way off; written 
by the loud shores of a subtropical island near upon ten thousand 
miles from Boscombe Chine and Manor: scenes which rise before 
me as I write, along with the faces and voices of my friends. 

Well, I am for the sea once more; no doubt Sir Percy also. Let 
us make the signal B. R. D. ! 

R. L. S. 


Waikiki, May 17, 1889. 




CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Introduction ix 

Summary of Events during the Master’s Wan- 
derings 1 

The Master’s Wanderings: From the Memoirs 

of the Chevalier de Burke . . . „ . . 44 

Persecutions endured by Mr. Henry .... 93 

Account of all that passed on the Night of 

February 27th, 1757 146 

Summary of Events during the Master’s Second 

Absence 179 

Adventure of Chevalier Burke in India: Ex- 
tracted from his Memoirs 210 

The Enemy in the House 217 

Mr. Mackellar’s Journey with the Master . 252 

Passages at New York 281 

The Journey in the Wilderness 309 

Narrative of the Trader, Mountain .... 324 

The Journey in the Wilderness — Concluded . 347 

















• - 








. 

1 
















■ 

















































♦ 


I I 












































INTRODUCTION 


THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE 

It is scarcely necessary now to write much of 
Robert Louis Stevenson himself. The man is as well 
known as Dickens or Thackeray, and those who read 
at all have a mental picture of his slight graceful 
figure, cavernous cheeks, large eyes, the velvet 
jacket perhaps, ready smile, and air of cultivated 
bohemianism. Friends of Stevenson, Thomas Hardy 
for example, liked the man even better than his 
books, still others were offended by what they thought 
the flippancy of his manners. Apparently he was a 
temperamental person, whose moods varied quickly, 
whose mind was alight with ideas all finding ready 
expression in speech, and this is the impression his 
letters also give. Bohemian he seemed in the best 
sense to his friends, and bohemian in a less favorable 
sense to some of his more stolid entertainers. 

Yet the picture needs some retouching, for this 
was only one aspect of Stevenson. Through much of 
his life he carried, and carried successfully, a burden 
of family and financial responsibility; he was a pas- 
sionate student and a good one, when need was, of 
history, literature, and politics; a dealer with men 
who became a power in Samoa. All these qualities 
and more in Stevenson are missed if we call him, as 
some have, a literary bohemian, or if charmed by his 
graceful style we neglect the earnest thought be- 
ix 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


neath. Like most men of letters who have made their 
mark upon their period, Stevenson was first of all very 
much of a man, take him how and when you will. 

It is Stevenson the wanderer and adventurer, but 
also the thoughtful Stevenson, student of history and 
his fellow-man, that appears in “The Master of Bal- 
lantrae,” a book conceived in Scotland, planned and 
begun in the Adirondacks, written upon the Jersey 
coast, on the Pacific, and in Tahiti, and concluded in 
^ Hawaii in 1889. 

Here is Stevenson’s own account of how the scat- 
tered elements of the story first came together in his 
mind: 

T was walking one night in the verandah of a 
small house in which I lived, outside the hamlet of 
Saranac. It was winter; the night was very dark; 
the air extraordinary clear and cold, and sweet with 
the purity of forests. From a good way below, the 
river was to be heard contending with ice and boulders : 
a few lights appeared, scattered unevenly among the 
darkness, but so far away as not to lessen the sense of 
isolation. For the making of a story here were fine 
conditions. . . . 

‘There cropped up in my memory a singular case 
of a buried and resuscitated fakir, which I had often 
been told by an uncle of mine, then lately dead, 
Inspector-General John Balfour. On such a fine 
frosty night, with no wind and the thermometer be- 
low zero, the brain works with much vivacity; and 
the next moment I had seen the circumstance trans- 
planted from India and the tropics to the Adiron- 
dack wilderness and the stringent cold of the Canadian 
border. . . . 


INTRODUCTION 


xi 


‘And while I was groping for the fable and the 
character required, behold I found them lying ready 
and nine years old in my memory. . . . Here, think- 
ing of quite other things, I had stumbled on the so- 
lution, or perhaps I should rather say (in stagewright 
phrase) the Curtain or Final Tableau of a story con- 
ceived long before on the moors between Pitlochry 
and Strathairdle, conceived in Highland rain, in the 
blend of the smell of heather and bog-plants, and with 
a mind full of the Athole correspondence and the 
Memoirs of the Chevalier de Johnstone. So long 
ago, so far away it waS, that I had first evoked the 
faces and the mutual tragic situation of the men of 
Durrisdeer.’ 

Like his great countryman and fellow-romancer, 
Walter Scott, Stevenson desired something real to 
bite upon when he composed romance. The vague, 
the shadowy, the mystical seldom appealed to him. 
He preferred history, or if not history, geography and 
possible adventure. In this “The Master of Bal- 
lantrae” is typical of his best works. It begins with 
the failure of “Bonny Prince Charlie,” the young 
Pretender to the throne of England, and follows the 
adventures of men who had become exiles in his 
cause. 

If the reader about to begin this novel will con- 
sider for an instant the state of Scotland in 1745, he 
will better understand the background of the story. 
He will find, when he begins to read the narrative, a 
family of the “lesser nobility” hard pressed finan- 
cially, and doubtful as to which of two courses to 
follow. Alison, the heiress, is living with them, and 
if one of the two boys should marry her the family 


INTRODUCTION 


xii 

fortunes would be restored. But Alison is romantic, 
and the romantic young Prince Charlie is just landing 
on a desperate adventure to regain, if he can, the 
British crown for the Stuarts. Now Scotland, pre- 
dominantly, and so far as we are told, the Durrisdeer 
family, are Protestants. The majority of the Scots 
do not want a Roman Catholic ruler (and the Stuarts 
are all Roman Catholics) even if he is in their eyes 
the legitimate king. The Durrisdeers hesitate. They 
know how their neighbors feel. But they know also 
another thing, which can be well understood by con- 
sidering Irish feeling to-day. *They know that Scot- 
land is intensely nationalistic; and has never been 
satisfied with the Act of Union, which in 1707 made 
the kingdom a part, and a very subordinate part, of 
the British realm. The Stuarts, after all, were Scot- 
tish kings. And furthermore, there is Alison, who is 
romantic and will approve of the romantic course, 
which is to throw in one’s lot with the adventurer. 
Just how clear all this was to each member of the 
house of Durrisdeer the story does not make evident, 
but the old Lord evidently grasped the situation. 
He “was all for temporising” and so, like many an- 
other Scottish family, and like some American fam- 
ilies in 1861, they made the curious decision which 
begins our story. They hedged. My Lord Durris- 
deer stayed quietly at home, as if he were satisfied, 
like most of his neighbors, with the government of 
George II, and kept his younger son with him. The 
Master went out for Prince Charlie and romance. 

But The Master of Ballantrae” is not the story 
of the revolt of ’45. Prince Charlie’s ill-advised, or 
rather unadvised, expedition concludes in the opening 


INTRODUCTION xiii 

chapters; and Stevenson relinquishes his cause and 
him as soon as they have yielded the situation he is 
after. He needed for his story a situation where a 
young and brilliant rascal should be thrown into the 
arms of adventure in such a fashion that romance 
would gild deeds which otherwise might seem mere 
rascality, and perplex innocent people whose duty it 
was to judge the perpetrator. When Prince Charlie 
is defeated, and the Master of Ballantrae becomes a 
fugitive, with supposedly a price on his head, he is in 
just such a romantic situation. He is a martyr in 
the eyes of Alison, arid his father feels that he is 
suffering for the sake of the family. Thus, although 
based on history, ‘‘The Master of Ballantrae” is not 
a historical romance. Still more important, though 
romantic in plot, its true theme is to be found in the 
situation from which all the adventures spring, and 
is best described as the result of good and evil as 
they act and react in a singularly unfortunate family. 

A few stage directions, to call them that, for the 
leading characters of the book will make this clear. 
The reader of “The Master of Ballantrae” meets five 
principal characters. First there is the old Lord, a 
fine cavalier type, intellectual and courtly. But he 
is slack and rusty from sitting too long in the chimney- 
corner, and probably he has always been a time- 
server without too much principle. Courtesy and 
loyalty to his own family’s interests seem to be his 
chief characteristics. Next there is Alison, an or- 
phan, an heiress, and his kinswoman living in his 
house, a fine-hearted woman, and true, as we see 
when the test comes, but a sentimental girl with a 
weak head for romance. Then there is the most com- 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


plex character of all, Henry, the younger son. He 
is an honest man and well-meaning, but he has been 
abused and put upon from his youth up. He is 
rough where his brother is smooth, he irritates where 
his brother wins admiration. He lacks self-confidence 
as a result of his experiences, and he lacks spirit. His 
nature is one of those good but narrow ones which are 
easily warped into hate. Next, and most important, 
comes James, the older brother, and Master of Bal- 
lantrae. He is Stevenson’s study of the rascal who 
has charm, grace, flexibility of mind, in fact, every 
quality his brother lacked, but no conscience. The 
choice between evil and good is to him a matter of 
expediency, and this determines his career and the 
troubles of the family. Last of all is the teller of 
most of the story, Mackellar, land-steward of the 
estate. Mackellar is another honest man, who, like 
Henry, has defects to balance his honesty. He has a 
dull, dry personality. He has a cowardly body; he 
is almost sexless; yet he has a dogged courage of 
mind and an unswerving loyalty to the interests of 
his employer which makes him the one heroic (though 
most unromantic) character of the tale. 

It is easy to see from this brief analysis what ma- 
terials Stevenson had for a fine story, full of brilliant 
contrasts, and unexpected shifts of friendship and 
fortune. It is not so easy to see, from the story itself, 
at least on first reading, that Stevenson as he wrote 
the tumultuous adventures of “The Master” was 
thinking hard throughout of the perplexing mixture 
of good and evil in humanity which so often gilds the 
bad and tarnishes the good in the eyes of the wisest, 
and often, as here in this story, really gilds the bad 


INTRODUCTION 


xv 


and really tarnishes the good. The tragedy of the 
honest man driven to desperation while the rascal 
became almost heroic, fascinated him as he followed 
these characters through the exciting plot. “The 
most,” he wrote to Sidney Colvin in 1887 when “The 
Master” was well under way, “is a dead genuine 
human problem — human tragedy, I should say 
rather. . . . The Master is all I know of the devil. I 
have known hints of him, in the world, but always 
cowards; he is as bold as a lion, but with the same 
deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so 
much surprise in my two cowards. Tis true, I saw 
a hint of the same nature in another man who was 
not a coward, but he had other things to attend to; 
the Master has nothing else but his devilry.” 

And later, as Stevenson wrote on in the story, his 
interest broadened still further. It is no longer 
merely the devilry of the Master that fascinates him, 
and indeed as one reads one sees that this devilry 
after all does begin to have some cause and purpose, 
since the Master’s heritage was in the hands of his 
brother, a man he despised and hated. The effect 
upon the virtuous of a devilish character when linked 
with a brave and graceful mind, upon the woman who 
loved him, upon a misused brother, upon an honest 
enemy — these problems absorbed Stevenson. And 
his story becomes quite as much a tale of perplexed 
virtue as of conscienceless evil. 

Stevenson draws no moral; you may form your own 
conclusions as to the moral when you read. But it is 
worth noting that of the fates of the two brothers, 
the Master’s is no more dire than that of his hate- 
crazed brother; and that it is the Master who makes 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 


the more tolerable end, though neither a good one. 
And again it is Mackellar, who acquires some power 
of sympathy for the wrongdoer at the moment when 
Henry loses all tolerance, that among them all comes 
off soundest and best. 

It is interesting to compare “The Master of Bal- 
lantrae” with “Markheim” and the “Strange Case 
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” those stories in which 
Stevenson first grappled with the problem of good 
and evil. “Markheim” was written in 1884, “Dr. 
Jekyll” in 1885, and work upon “The Master” 
really began in the Adirondacks in 1887. There is a 
sequence of time here and a parallel sequence of 
thought. Markheim, after he kills the shopkeeper, 
determines to repent, but finds that he is caught in a 
chain of circumstances which makes repentance im- 
possible. Convinced of his helplessness against evil, 
he foils the devil, so to speak, by giving himself up 
to the police. The Master has more strength, more 
charm than Markheim, but he lacks the conscience 
which at the last moment brings conviction of sin. 
He is a more human and a more thorough-going 
villain. Dr. Jekyll gives way to his worser self so 
often that he loses all self-control, and becomes Mr. 
Hyde in soul as well as in body. The Master has the 
quality of resolute villainy that Mr. Hyde possesses, 
but he is less of a monster, more human. He is charm- 
ing, graceful, liberal, as real villains often are. He is 
more probable. These are the differences; but all 
three books are alike in the lesson implied, that evil 
is a corrosive and destroys both good and itself. 

In brief, Jekyll and Hyde, and Markheim with his 
Mysterious Visitor, are symbols, allegories, only 


INTRODUCTION xvii 

partly clothed in flesh. Their moral power is great, 
but we cannot think of them as figures of reality. In 
“Ballantrae” Stevenson proposed to take a step for- 
ward. He created figures where, as in life, virtue and 
evil are mingled with different and with confusing 
attributes. He proposed to write fiction instead of 
allegory, and if “The Master” is a less striking story 
than “Dr. Jekyll” and less vivid, perhaps, than 
“Markheim,” it is truer to our experience. 

Indeed, it is because “Ballantrae” is a real story 
with a vivid historical background that it is so good 
to read. The variety of episode — rebellion, piracy, 
Indian warfare, duelling, thwarted love, mock death, 
and the search for treasure; the risky, but successful, 
method of narrative, by which the telling of the tale 
is switched from the crude but wise Mackellar to the 
naive and slightly ridiculous Colonel Burke, and then 
back again, both make for vivid, sustained interest. 
If the problem of good and evil had been left out it 
still would have been a good story, but less solid and 
thought provoking. 

The plot, so many think, is too far-flung geograph- 
ically. Stevenson apparently would have agreed with 
his critics, since he intended to place a chapter or 
two in the French East Indies, then gave that up, and 
left, as you will see, Secundra Dass afloat in the 
narrative with no excuse except that he was neces- 
sary for the twist of the plot in the last chapter. The 
sensational ending of the story, too, though highly 
picturesque is not dramatic, and Stevenson was al- 
ways dubious about it. The Master ceases his long 
duel with his brother and fights other enemies — 
greed, accident, privation. Henry suddenly recap- 


xviii INTRODUCTION 

tures the stage for a final moment of tragedy, and 
surprises us when he does so. He, who had been the 
centre of the mental struggle for so long, had almost 
drifted out of the story, and is not much more than 
a looker-on at these final scenes. Or perhaps the 
trouble is that a tale which has been tensely balanced 
on a struggle between good and evil at the end be- 
comes mere exciting adventure. We must conclude 
that Stevenson’s vigorous fancy here outran his 
imagination; or perhaps the Princess Liliuokolani of 
Hawaii called too often at the house on Wakiki Road 
where “ Ballantrae ” was being finished, for Mrs. * 
Stevenson says that “at the sound of her carriage- 
wheels ‘The Master’ went to the wall.” 

Nevertheless, no young American, looking from 
Mt. Marcy or McIntyre upon the forests and lakes 
beneath, can be otherwise than grateful for the vivid 
scene which Stevenson has written into their history. 
And all good lovers of romance, as well as those more 
curious in the complexities of character, must be 
thankful for the richness of “The Master of Bal- 
lantrae.” 


THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE 



THE MASTER OF 
BALLANTRAE 


SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING 
THE MASTER’S WANDERINGS 

T HE full truth of this odd matter is what 
the world has long been looking for and 
public curiosity is sure to welcome. It 
so befell that I was intimately mingled with the 
last years and history of the house ; and there does 
not live one man so able as myself to make these 
matters plain, or so desirous to narrate them faith- 
fully. I knew the Master; on many secret steps 
of his career, I have an authentic memoir in my 
hand ; I sailed with him on his last voyage almost 
alone; I made one upon that winter’s journey of 
which so many tales have gone abroad ; and I was 
there at the man’s death. As for my late Lord 
Durrisdeer, I served him and loved him near twenty 
years; and thought more of him the more I knew 
of him. Altogether, I think it not fit that so much 
evidence should perish; the truth is a debt I owe 


2 


THE MASTER 


my lord’s memory; and I think my old years will 
flow more smoothly and my white hair lie quieter 
on the pillow when the debt is paid. 

The Duries of Durrisdeer and Ballantrae were 
a strong family in the south-west from the days 
of David First. A rhyme still current in the 
country-side — 

Kittle folk are the Durrisdeers, 

They ride wi’ ower mony spears — 

bears the mark of its antiquity ; and the name ap- 
pears in another, which common report attributes 
to Thomas of Ercildoune himself — I cannot say 
how truly, and which some have applied — I dare 
not say with how much justice — to the events of 
this narration: 

Twa Duries in Durrisdeer, 

Ane to tie and ane to ride, 

An ill day for the groom 
And a waur day for the bride. 

Authentic history besides is filled with their ex- 
ploits which (to our modern eyes) seem not very 
commendable ; and the family suffered its full 
share of those ups and downs to which the great 
houses of Scotland have been ever liable. But all 
these I pass over, to come to that memorable year 
1745, when the foundations of this tragedy were 
laid. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


3 


At that time there dwelt a family of four per- 
sons in the house of Durrisdeer, near St. Bride’s, 
on the Solway shore; a chief hold of their race 
since the reformation. My old lord, eighth of the 
name, was not old in years, but he suffered pre- 
maturely from the disabilities of age; his place 
was at the chimney-side; there he sat reading, in 
a lined gown, with few words for any man, and 
wry words for none: the model of an old retired 
housekeeper; and yet his mind very well nour- 
ished with study, and reputed in the country to be 
more cunning than he seemed. The Master of 
Ballantrae, James in baptism, took from his father 
the love of serious reading; some of his tact per- 
haps as well, but that which was only policy in the 
father became black dissimulation in the son. The 
face of his behaviour was merely popular and wild : 
he sat late at wine, later at the cards; had the 
name in the country of “ an unco man for the 
lasses ” ; and was ever in the front of broils. But 
for all he was the first to go in, yet it was ob- 
served he was invariably the best to come off; 
and his partners in mischief were usually alone to 
pay the piper. This luck or dexterity got him 
several ill-wishers, but with the rest of the country, 
enhanced his reputation ; so that great things were 
looked for in his future, when he should have 
gained more gravity. One very black mark he 


4 


THE MASTER 


had to his name; but the matter was hushed up 
at the time, and so defaced by legends before I 
came into those parts, that I scruple to set it 
down. If it was true, it was a horrid fact in one 
so young; and if false, it was a horrid calumny. 
I think it notable that he had always vaunted him- 
self quite implacable, and was taken at his word; 
so that he had the addition among his neighbours 
of “ an ill man to cross.” Here was altogether a 
young nobleman (not yet twenty-four in the year 
*45) who had made a figure in the country beyond 
his time of life. The less marvel if there were 
little heard of the second son, Mr. Henry (my late 
Lord Durrisdeer), who was neither very bad nor 
yet very able, but an honest, solid sort of lad like 
many of his neighbours. Little heard, I say ; but in- 
deed it was a case of little spoken. He was known 
among the salmon fishers in the firth, for that was 
a sport that he assiduously followed; he was an 
excellent good horse-doctor besides; and took a 
chief hand, almost from a boy, in the management 
of the estates. How hard a part that was, in the 
situation of that family, none knows better than 
myself; nor yet with how little colour of justice 
a man may there acquire the reputation of a tyrant 
and a miser. The fourth person in the house was 
Miss Alison Graeme, a near kinswoman, an orphan, 
and the heir to a considerable fortune which her 


OF BALLANTRAE 


5 

father had acquired in trade. This money was 
loudly called for by my lord’s necessities; indeed 
the land was deeply mortgaged; and Miss Alison 
was designed accordingly to be the Master’s wife, 
gladly enough on her side; with how much good- 
will on his, is another matter. She was a comely 
girl and in those days very spirited and self-willed ; 
for the old lord having no daughter of his own, 
and my lady being long dead, she had grown up 
as best she might. 

To these four, came the news of Prince Charlie’s 
landing, and set them presently by the ears. My 
lord, like the chimney-keeper that he was, was all 
for temporising. Miss Alison held the other side, 
because it appeared romantical; and the Master 
(though I have heard they did not agree often) 
was for this once of her opinion. The adventure 
tempted him, as I conceive; he was tempted by 
the opportunity to raise the fortunes of the house, 
and not less by the hope of paying off his private 
liabilities, which were heavy beyond all opinion. 
As for Mr. Henry, it appears he said little enough 
at first ; his part came later on. It took the three 
a whole day’s disputation, before they agreed to 
steer a middle course, one son going forth to strike 
a blow for King James, my lord and the other 
staying at home to keep in favour with King 
George. Doubtless this was my lord’s decision; 


6 


THE MASTER 


and as is well known, it was the part played by 
many considerable families. But the one dispute 
settled, another opened. For my lord, Miss Alison 
and Mr. Henry all held the one view : that it was 
the cadet’s part to go out; and the Master, what 
with restlessness and vanity, would at no rate con- j 
sent to stay at home. My lord pleaded, Miss | 
Alison wept, Mr. Henry was very plain spoken: 
all was of no avail. 

“ It is the direct heir of Durrisdeer that should 
ride by his King’s bridle,” says the Master. 

“ If we were playing a manly part,” says Mr. ; 
Henry, “ there might be sense in such talk. But 1 
what are we doing? Cheating at cards!” 

“ We are saving the house of Durrisdeer, 
Henry,” his father said. 

“ And see, James,” said Mr. Henry, “ if I go, 
and the Prince has the upper-hand, it will be easy , 
to make your peace with King James. But if you 
go, and the expedition fails, we divide the right 
and the title. And what shall I be then ? ” 

“ You will be Lord Durrisdeer,” said the Master. 

“ I put all I have upon the table.” 

“ I play at no such game,” cries Mr. Henry. 

“ I shall be left in such a situation as no man of 
sense and honour could endure. I shall be neither 
fish nor flesh ! ” he cried. And a little after, he 
had another expression, plainer perhaps than he 


O F B ALLANTRAE 7 

intended. “ It is your duty to be here with my 
father,” said he. “ You know well enough you 
are the favourite. ,, 

“ Ay ? ” said the Master. “ And there spoke 
Envy! Would you trip up my heels — Jacob ?” 
said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously. 

Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of 
the hall without reply ; for he had an excellent gift 
of silence. Presently he came back. 

“ I am the cadet and I should go,” said he. 
“ And my lord here is the master, and he says I 
shall go. What say ye to that, my brother ? ” 

“ I say this, Harry,” returned the Master, “ that 
when very obstinate folk are met, there are only 
two ways out: Blows — and I think none of us 
could care to go so far; or the arbitrament of 
chance — and here is a guinea piece. Will you 
stand by the toss of the coin ? ” 

“ I will stand and fall by it,” said Mr. Henry. 
“ Heads, I go; shield, I stay.” 

The coin was spun and it fell shield. “ So there 
is a lesson for Jacob,” says the Master. 

“ We shall live to repent of this,” says Mr. 
Henry, and flung out of the hall. 

As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of 
gold which had just sent her lover to the wars, 
and flung it clean through the family shield in the 
great painted window. 


8 


THE MASTER 


“ If you loved me as well as I love you, you 
would have stayed,” cried she. 

“ ‘ I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I 
not honour more,’ ” sang the Master. 

“ O ! ” she cried, “ you have no heart — I hope 
you may be killed ! ” and she ran from the room, 
and in tears to her own' chamber. 

It seems the Master turned to my lord with his 
most comical manner, and says he, “ This looks 
like a devil of a wife.” 

“ I think you are a devil of a son to me,” cried 
his father, “ you that have always been the fa- 
vourite, to my shame be it spoken. Never a good 
hour have I gotten of you, since you were born; 
no, never one good hour,” and repeated it again 
the third time. Whether it was the Master’s levity, 
or his insubordination, or Mr. Henry’s word about 
the favourite son, that had so much disturbed my 
lord, I do not know; but I incline to think it was 
the last, for I have it by all accounts that Mr. 
Henry was more made up to from that hour. 

Altogether it was in pretty ill blood with his 
family that the Master rode to the north; which 
was the more sorrowful for others to remember 
when it seemed too late. By fear and favour, he 
had scraped together near upon a dozen men, prin- 
cipally tenants’ sons ; they were all pretty full when 
they set forth, and rode up the hill by the old 


OF BALLANTRAE 


9 

abbey, roaring and singing, the white cockade in 
every hat. It was a desperate venture for so small 
a company to cross the most of Scotland unsup- 
ported; and (what made folk think so the more) 
even as that poor dozen was clattering up the hill, 
a great ship of the king’s navy, that could have 
brought them under with a single boat, lay with 
her broad ensign streaming in the bay. The next 
afternoon, having given the Master a fair start, 
it was Mr. Henry’s turn; and he rode off, all by 
himself, to offer his sword and carry letters from 
his father to King George’s government. Miss 
v Alison was shut in her room and did little but 
weep, till both were gone; only she stitched the 
cockade upon the Master’s hat and (as John Paul 
told me) it was wetted with tears when he car- 
ried it down to him. 

5 In all that followed, Mr. Henry and my old lord 
were true to their bargain. That ever they ac- 
complished anything is more than I could learn; 
and that they were anyway strong on the King’s 
side, more than I believe. But they kept the letter 
of loyalty, corresponded with my Lord President, 
sat still at home, and had little or no commerce 
with the Master while that business lasted. Nor 
was he, on his side, more communicative. Miss 
Alison, indeed, was always sending him expresses, 
but I do not know if she had many answers. 


IO 


THE MASTER 


Macconochie rode for her once, and found the 
Highlanders before Carlisle, and the Master rid- 
ing by the Prince’s side in high favour; he took 
the letter (so Macconochie tells), opened it, glanced 
it through with a mouth like a man whistling, and 
stuck it in his belt, whence, on his horse passage- 
ing, it fell unregarded to the ground. It was 
Macconochie who picked it up; and he still kept 
it, and indeed I have seen it in his hands. News 
came to Durrisdeer of course, by the common re- 
port, as it goes travelling through a country, a 
thing always wonderful to me. By that means 
the family learned more of the Master’s favour 
with the Prince, and the ground it was said to 
stand on: for by a strange condescension in a 
man so proud — only that he was a man still 
more ambitious — he was said to have crept into 
notability by truckling to the Irish. Sir Thomas 
Sullivan, Colonel Burke and the rest were his 
daily comrades, by which course he withdrew him- 
self from his own countryfolk. All the small 
intrigues, he had a hand in fomenting; thwarted 
my Lord George upon a thousand points; was 
always for the advice that seemed palatable to the 
Prince, no matter if it was good or bad; and 
seems upon the whole (like the gambler he was 
all through life) to have had less regard to the 
chances of the campaign than to the greatness of 


OF BALLANTRAE 


ii 


favour he might aspire to, if (by any luck) it 
should succeed. For the rest, he did very well 
in the field; no one questioned that; for he was 
no coward. 

The next was the news of Culloden, which was 
brought to Durrisdeer by one of the tenants’ sons, 
the only survivor, he declared, of all those that 
had gone singing up the hill. By an unfortunate 
chance, John Paul and Macconochie had that very 
morning found the guinea piece (which was the 
root of all the evil) sticking in a holly bush; they 
had been “ up the gait,” as the servants say at 
Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and if they had 
little left of the guinea, they had less of their wits. 
What must John Paul do, but burst into the hall 
where the family sat at dinner, and cry the news 
to them that “ Tam Macmorland was but new 
lichtit at the door, and — wirra, wirra — there 
were nane to come behind him ” ? 

They took the word in silence like folk con- 
demned ; only Mr. Henry carrying his palm to his 
face, and Miss Alison laying her head outright 
upon her hands. As for my lord, he was like 
ashes. 

“ I have still one son,” says he. “ And, Henry, 
I will do you this justice, it is the kinder that is 
left.” 

It was a strange thing to say in such a moment : 


12 


THE MASTER 


but my lord had never forgotten Mr. Henry’s 
speech, and he had years of injustice on his con- 
science. Still it was a strange thing; and more 
than Miss Alison could let pass. She broke out 
and blamed my lord for his unnatural words, and 
Mr. Henry because he was sitting there in safety 
when his brother lay dead, and herself because she 
had given her sweetheart ill words at his depar- 
ture ; calling him the flower of the flock, wringing 
her hands, protesting her love, and crying on him 
by his name ; so that the servants stood astonished. 

Mr. Henry got to his feet and stood holding his 
chair; it was he that was like ashes now. 

“ O,” he burst out suddenly, “ I know you 
loved him ! ” 

“ The world knows that, glory be to God ! ” 
cried she ; and then to Mr. Henry : “ There is 
none but me to know one thing — that you were 
a traitor to him in your heart.” 

“ God knows,” groans he, “ it was lost love on 
both sides.” 

Time went by in the house after that, without 
much change; only they were now three instead 
of four, which was a perpetual reminder of their 
loss. Miss Alison’s money, you are to bear in 
mind, was highly needful for the estates ; and the 
one brother being dead, my old lord soon set his 
heart upon her marrying the other. Day in, day 


OF BALLANTRAE 


*3 

out, he would work upon her, sitting by the chim- 
ney-side with his finger in his Latin book, and his 
eyes set upon her face with a kind of pleasant in- 
tentness that became the old gentleman very well. 
If she wept, he would condole with her, like an 
ancient man that has seen worse times and begins 
to think lightly even of sorrow; if she raged, he 
would fall to reading again in his Latin book, but 
always with some civil excuse; if she offered (as 
she often did) to let them have her money in a 
gift, he would show her how little it consisted 
with his honour, and remind her, even if he should 
consent, that Mr. Henry would certainly refuse. 
Non vi sed scepe cadendo was a favourite word of 
his ; and no doubt this quiet persecution wore away 
much of her resolve; no doubt, besides, he had a 
great influence on the girl, having stood in the 
place of both her parents; and for that matter, 
she was herself filled with the spirit of the Duries, 
and would have gone a great way for the glory 
of Durrisdeer ; but not so far, I think, as to marry 
my poor patron, had it not been (strangely enough) 
for the circumstance of his extreme unpopularity. 

This was the work of Tam Macmorland. There 
was not much harm in Tam; but he had that 
grievous weakness, a long tongue ; and as the only 
man in that country who had been out (or rather 
who had come in again) he was sure of listeners. 


THE MASTER 


14 

Those that have the underhand in any fighting, I 
have observed, are ever anxious to persuade them- 
selves they were betrayed. By Tam’s account of j 
it, the rebels had been betrayed at every turn and: 
by every officer they had; they had been betrayed 
at Derby, and betrayed at Falkirk; the night march 
was a step of treachery of my Lord George’s ; and 
Culloden was lost by the treachery of the Mac- 
donalds. This habit of imputing treason grew 
upon the fool, till at last he must have in Mr. 
Henry also. Mr. Henry (by his account) had 
betrayed the lads of Durrisdeer; he had promised 
to follow with more men, and instead of that he 
had ridden to King George. “ Ay, and the next 
day!” Tam would cry. “ The puir, bonnie Mas- 
ter and the puir, kind lads that rade wi’ him, were 
hardly ower the scaur, or he was aff — the Judis! 
Ay, weel — he has his way o’t : he’s to be my 
lord, nae less, and there ’s mony a cauld corp 
amang the Hieland heather ! ” And at this, if 
Tam had been drinking, he would begin to 
weep. 

Let any one speak long enough, he will get be- 
lievers. This view Of Mr. Henry’s behaviour crept 
about the country by little and little ; it was talked 
upon by folk that knew the contrary but were short 
of topics ; and it was heard and believed and given 
out for gospel by the ignorant and the ill-willing. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


*5 


Mr. Henry began to be shunned; yet awhile, and 
the commons began to murmur as he went by, and 
the women (who are always the most bold because 
they are the most safe) to cry out their reproaches 
to his face. The Master was cried up for a saint. 
It was remembered how he had never any hand 
in pressing the tenants; as, indeed, no more he 
had, except to spend the money. He was a little 
wild perhaps, the folk said; but how much better 
was a natural, wild lad that would soon have 
settled down, than a skinflint and a sneckdraw, 
sitting, with his nose in an account-book, to perse- 
cute poor tenants. One trollop, who had had a 
child to the Master and by all accounts been very 
badly used, yet made herself a kind of champion 
of his memory. She flung a stone one day at Mr. 
Henry. 

“ Whaur ’s the bonnie lad that trustit ye ? ” she 
cried. 

Mr. Henry reined in his horse and looked upon 
her, the blood flowing from his lip. “ Ay, Jess? ” 
says he. “ You too? And yet ye should ken me 
better.” For it was he who had helped her with 
money. 

The woman had another stone ready, which she 
made as if she would cast ; and he, to ward him- 
self, threw up the hand that held his riding rod. 

“ What, would ye beat a lassie, ye ugly r? ” 


1 6 THE MASTER 

cries she, and ran away screaming as though he 
had struck her. 

Next day word went about the country like 
wildfire that Mr. Henry had beaten Jessie Broun 
within an inch of her life. I give it as one instance 
of how this snowball grew and one calumny 
brought another; until my poor patron was so 
perished in reputation that he began to keep the 
house like my lord. All this while, you may be 
very sure he uttered no complaints at home; the 
very ground of the scandal was too sore a matter 
to be handled; and Mr. Henry was very proud 
and strangely obstinate in silence. My old lord 
must have heard of it, by John Paul, if by no 
one else; and he must at least have remarked the 
altered habits of his son. Yet even he, it is prob- 
able, knew not how high the feeling ran; and as 
for Miss Alison, she was ever the last person to 
hear news, and the least interested when she heard 
them. 

In the height of the ill-feeling (for it died away 
as it came, no man could say why) there was an 
election forward in the town of St. Bride’s, which 
ts the next to Durrisdeer, standing on the Water 
of Swift; some grievance was fermenting, I for- 
get what, if ever I heard; and it was currently 
said there would be broken heads ere night, and 
that the sheriff had sent as far as Dumfries for 


OF BALLANTRAE 


*7 

soldiers. My lord moved that Mr. Henry should 
be present; assuring him it was necessary to ap- 
pear, for the credit of the house. “ It will soon 
be reported,” said he, “that we do not take the 
lead in our own country.” 

“ It is a strange lead that I can take,” said Mr. 
Henry; and when they had pushed him further, 
“ I tell you the plain truth,” he said, “ I dare not 
show' my face.” 

“ You are the first of the house that ever said 
so,” cries Miss Alison. 

“ W e will go all three,” said my lord ; and sure 
enough he got into his boots (the first time in 
four years — a sore business John Paul had to 
get them on) and Miss Alison into her riding coat, 
and all three rode together to St. Bride’s. 

The streets were full of the riff-raff of all the 
country-side, who had no sooner clapped eyes on 
Mr. Henry than the hissing began, and the hoot- 
ing, and the cries of “Judas!” and “Where was 
the Master ? ” and “ Where were the poor ladf 
that rode with him ? ” Even a stone was cast ; 
but the more part cried shame at that, for my 
old lord’s sake and Miss Alison’s. It took not ten 
minutes to persuade my lord that Mr. Henry had 
been right. He said never a word, but turned his 
horse about, and home again, with his chin upon 
his bosom. Never a word said Miss Alison; no 


1 8 


THE MASTER 


doubt she thought the more; no doubt her pride 
was stung, for she was a bone-bred Durie; and 
no doubt her heart was touched to see her cousin 
so unjustly used. That night she was never in 
bed ; I have often blamed my lady — when I call 
to mind that night, I readily forgive her all; and 
the first thing in the morning, she came to the old 
lord in his usual seat. 

“ If Henry still wants me,” said she, “ he can 
have me now.” To himself she had a different 
speech : “ I bring you no love, Henry ; but God 
knows, all the pity in the world.” 

June the first, 1748, was the day of their mar- 
riage. It was December of the same year that 
first saw me alighting at the doors of the great 
house; and from there I take up the history of 
events as they befell under my own observation, 
like a witness in a court. 

I made the last of my journey in the cold end 
of December, in a mighty dry day of frost; and 
who should be my guide but Patey Macmorland, 
brother of Tom? For a tow-headed, bare-legged 
brat of ten, he had more ill tales upon his tongue 
than ever I heard the match of; having drunken 
betimes in his brother’s cup. I was still not so 
old myself; pride had not yet the upper-hand of 
curiosity; and indeed it would have taken any 


OF BALLANTRAE 




l 9 


man, that cold morning, to hear all the old clashes 
of the country and be shown all the places by the 
way where strange things had fallen out. I had 
tales of Claverhouse as we came through the bogs, 
and tales of the devil as we came over the top of 
the scaur. As we came in by the abbey I heard 
somewhat of the old monks, and more of the 
freetraders, who use its ruins for a magazine, 
landing for that cause within a cannon-shot of 
Durrisdeer; and along all the road, the Duries 
and poor Mr. Henry were in the first rank of 
slander. My mind was thus highly prejudiced 
against the family I was about to serve; so that 
I was half surprised, when I beheld Durrisdeer 
itself, lying in a pretty, sheltered bay, under the 
Abbey Hill; the house most commodiously built 
in the French fashion or perhaps Italianate, for I 
have no skill in these arts ; and the place the most 
beautified with gardens, lawns, shrubberies, and 
trees I had ever seen. The money sunk here un- 
productively would have quite restored the family; 
but as it was, it cost a revenue to keep it up. 

Mr. Henry came himself to the door to welcome 
me: a tall, dark young gentleman (the Duries are 
all black men) of a plain and not cheerful face, 
very strong in body but not so strong in health: 
taking me by the hand without any pride, and 
putting me at home with plain, kind speeches. He 


20 


THE MASTER 


led me into the hall, booted as I was, to present 
me to my lord. It was still daylight; and the 
first thing I observed was a lozenge of clear glass 
in the midst of the shield in the painted window, 
which I remember thinking a blemish on a room 
otherwise so handsome, with its family portraits, 
and the pargetted ceiling with pendants, and the 
carved chimney, in one corner of which my old 
lord sat reading in his Livy. He was like Mr. 
Henry, with much the same plain countenance, 
only more subtle and pleasant, and his talk a 
thousand times more entertaining. He had many 
questions to ask me, I remember, of Edinburgh 
College, where I had just received my mastership 
of arts, and of the various professors, with whom 
and their proficiency he seemed well acquainted; 
and thus, talking of things that I knew, I soon 
got liberty of speech in my new home. 

In the midst of this, came Mrs. Henry into the 
room; she was very far gone, Miss Katharine 
being due in about six weeks, which made me 
think less of her beauty at the first sight; and 
she used me with more of condescension than the 
rest; so that, upon all accounts, I kept her in the 
third place of my esteem. 

It did not take long before all Pate Macmor- 
land’s tales were blotted out of my belief, and I 
was become, what I have ever since remained, a 


OF BALLANTRAE 


21 


loving servant of the house of Durrisdeer. Mr. 
Henry had the chief part of my affection. It was 
with him I worked; and I found him an exacting 
master, keeping all his kindness for those hours 
in which we were unemployed, and in the steward’s 
office not only loading me with work but viewing 
me with a shrewd supervision. At length one day, 
he looked up from his paper with a kind of timid- 
ness, and says he, “ Mr. Mackellar, I think I ought 
to tell you that you do very well.” That was my 
first word of commendation; and from that day 
his jealousy of my performance was relaxed; soon 
it was “ Mr. Mackellar ” here, and “ Mr. Mac- 
kellar ” there, with the whole family ; and for 
much of my service at Durrisdeer, I have trans- 
acted everything at my own time and to my own 
fancy, and never a farthing challenged. Even 
while he was driving me, I had begun to find my 
heart go out to Mr. Henry; no doubt, partly in 
pity, he was a man so palpably unhappy. He 
would fall into a deep muse over our accounts, 
staring at the page or out of the window; and at 
those times the look of his face, and the sigh that 
would break from him, awoke in me strong feel- 
ings of curiosity and commiseration. One day, I 
remember, we were late upon some business in 
the steward’s room. This room is in the top of 
the house and has a view upon the bay, and over 


22 


THE MASTER 


a little wooded cape, on the long sands; and 
there, right over against the sun which was then 
dipping, we saw the freetraders with a great force 
of men and horses, scouring on the beach. Mr. 
Henry had been staring straight west, so that I 
ynarvelled he was not blinded by. the sun; sud- 
denly he frowns, rubs his hand upon his brow, 
and turns to me with a smile. 

“ You would not guess what I was thinking,” 
says he. “ I was thinking I would be a happier 
man if I could ride and run the danger of my 
life, with these lawless companions.” 

I told him I had observed he did not enjoy 
good spirits; and that it was a common fancy to 
envy others and think we should be the better of 
some change; quoting Horace to the point, like a 
young man fresh from college. 

“ Why, just so,” said he. “ And with that we 
may get back to our accounts.” 

It was not long before I began to get wind of 
the causes that so much depressed him. Indeed 
a blind man must have soon discovered there was 
a shadow on that house, the shadow of the Master 
of Ballantrae. Dead or alive (and he was then 
supposed to be dead) that man was his brother’s 
rival : his rival abroad, where there was never a 
good word for Mr. Henry and nothing but regret 
and praise for the Master ; and his rival at home, 


OF BALLANTRAE 


23 

not only with his father and his wife, but with 
the very servants. 

They were two old serving men, that were the 
leaders. John Paul, a little, bald, solemn, stomachy 
man, a great professor of piety and (take him for 
all in all) a pretty faithful servant, was the chief 
of the Master’s faction. None durst go so far as 
John. He took a pleasure in disregarding Mr. 
Henry publicly, often with a slighting comparison. 
My lord and Mrs. Henry took him up, to be sure, 
but never so resolutely as they should; and he 
had only to pull his weeping face and begin his 
lamentations for the Master — “ his laddie,” as 
he called him — to have the whole condoned. 
As for Henry, he let these things pass in 
silence, sometimes with a sad and sometimes 
with a black look. There was no rivalling the 
dead, he knew that; and how to censure an old 
serving man for a fault of loyalty, was more 
than he could see. His was not the tongue to 
do it. 

Macconochie was chief upon the other side; an 
old, ill-spoken, swearing, ranting, drunken dog; 
and I have often thought it an odd circumstance 
in human nature, that these two serving men 
should each have been the champion of his con- 
trary, and blackened their own faults and made 
light of their own virtues when they beheld them 


THE MASTER 


24 

in a master, Macconochie had soon smelled out 
my secret inclination, took me much into his con- 
fidence, and would rant against the Master by the 
hour, so that even my work suffered. “ They 're 
a’ daft here,” he would cry, “ and be damned to 
them ! The Master — the deil ’s in their thrapples 
that should call him sae ! it ’s Mr. Henry should 
be Master now ! They were nane sae fond o’ the 
Master when they had him, I ’ll can tell ye that. 
Sorrow on his name! Never a guid word did 
I hear on his lips, nor naebody else, but just 
fleering and flyting and profane cursing — deil 
ha’e him ! There ’s nane kent his wickedness : him 
a gentleman ! Did ever ye hear tell, Mr. Mackellar, 
o’ Wully White the wabster? No? Aweel, Wully 
was an unco praying kind o’ man ; a driegh body, 
nane o’ my kind, I never could abide the sight o’ ! 
him; onyway he was a great hand by his way of 
it, and he up and rebukit the Master for some of 
his on-goings. It was a grand thing for the Mas- 
ter o’ Ball’ntrae to tak up a feud wi’ a wabster, 
was nae ’t ? ” Macconochie would sneer : indeed he 
never took the full name upon his lips but with a 
sort of a whine of hatred. “ But he did ! A fine 
employ it was: chapping at the man’s door, and 
crying 4 boo ’ in his him, and puttin’ poother in 
his fire, and pee-oys 1 in his window ; till the man 


1 A kind of firework made with damp powder. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


25 

thocht it was auld Hornie was come seekin’ him. 
Weel, to mak a lang story short, Wully gaed gyte. 
At the hinder end, they couldnae get him fra his 
knees, but he just roared and prayed and grat 
straucht on, till he got his release. It was fair 
murder, a’body said that. Ask John Paul — he 
was brawly ashamed o’ that game, him that ’s sic 
a Christian man! Grand doin’s for the Master o’ 
Ball’ntrae ! ” I asked him what the Master had 
thought of it himself. “ How would I ken ? ” says 
he. “ He never said naething.” And on again 
in his usual manner of banning and swearing, with 
every now and again a “ Master of Ballantrae ” 
sneered through his nose. It was in one of these 
confidences, that he showed me the Carlisle letter, 
the print of the horse-shoe still stamped in the 
paper. Indeed that was our last confidence; for 
he then expressed himself so ill-naturedly of Mrs. 
Henry, that I had to reprimand him sharply, and 
must thenceforth hold him at a distance. 

My old lord was uniformly kind to Mr. Henry; 
he had even pretty ways of gratitude, and would 
sometimes clap him on the shoulder and say, as 
if to the world at large : “ This is a very good 
son to me.” And grateful he was no doubt, being 
a man of sense and justice. But I think that was 
all, and I am sure Mr. Henry thought so. The 
love was all for the dead son. Not that this was 


26 


THE MASTER 


often given breath to; indeed with me but once. 
My lord had asked me one day how I got on with 
Mr. Henry, and I had told him the truth. 

“ Ay,” said he, looking sideways on the burn- 
ing fire, “ Henry is a good lad, a very good lad,” 
said he. “ You have heard, Mr. Mackellar, that 
I had another son? I am afraid he was not so 
virtuous a lad as Mr. Henry ; but dear me, he ’s 
dead, Mr. Mackellar! and while he lived we were 
all very proud of him, all very proud. If he was 
not all he should have been in some ways, well, 
perhaps we loved him better ! ” This last he said 
looking musingly in the fire ; and then to me, with 
a great deal of briskness, “ But I am rejoiced you 
do so well with Mr. Henry. You will find him a 
good master.” And with that he opened his book, 
which was the customary signal of dismission. But 
it would be little that he read and less that he 
understood; Culloden field and the Master, these 
would be the burthen of his thought; and the 
burthen of mine was an unnatural jealousy of the 
dead man for Mr. Henry’s sake, that had even then 
begun to grow on me. 

I am keeping Mrs. Henry for the last so that 
this expression of my sentiment may seem un- 
warrantably strong: the reader shall judge for 
himself when I am done. But I must first tell 
of another matter, which was the means of bring- 


OF BALLANTRAE 


27 


ing me more intimate. I had not yet been six 
months at Durrisdeer when it chanced that John 
Paul fell sick and must keep his bed; drink was 
the root of his malady, in my poor thought; but 
he was tended and indeed carried himself like an 
afflicted saint; and the very minister, who came 
to visit him, professed himself edified when he 
went away. The third morning of his sickness, 
Mr. Henry comes to me with something of a 
hang-dog look. 

“ Mackellar,” says he, “ I wish I could trouble 
you upon a little service. There is a pension we 
pay; it is John’s part to carry it; and now that 
he is sick, I know not to whom I should look 
unless it was yourself. The matter is very deli- 
cate; I could not carry it with my own hand for 
a sufficient reason; I dare not send Macconochie 
who is a talker, and I am — I have — I am desir- 
ous this should not come to Mrs. Henry’s ears,” 
says he, and flushed to his neck as he said it. 

To say truth, when I found I was to carry 
money to one Jessie Broun who was no better 
than she should be, I supposed it was some trip 
of his own that Mr. Henry was dissembling. I 
was the more impressed when the truth came out. 

It was up a wynd off a side street in St. Bride’s, 
that Jessie had her lodging. The place was very 
ill inhabited, mostly by the freetrading sort ; there 


2 fc 


THE MASTER 


was a man with a broken head at the entry; half- 
way up, in a tavern, fellows were roaring and 
singing, though it was not yet nine in the day. 
Altogether, I had never seen a worse neighbour- 
hood even in the great city of Edinburgh, and I 
was in two minds to go back. Jessie’s room was 
of a piece with her surroundings and herself nc 
better.* She would not give me the receipt (which 
Mr. Henry had told me to demand, for he was 
very methodical) until she had sent out for spirits 
and I had pledged her in a glass ; and all the time 
she carried on in a light-headed, reckless way, now 
aping the manners of a lady, now breaking into 
unseemly mirth, now making coquettish advances 
that oppressed me to the ground. Of the money, 
she spoke more tragically. 

“ It ’s blood money,” said she, “ I take it for 
that: blood money for the betrayed. See what 
I ’m brought down to ! Ah, if the bonnie lad were 
back again, it would be changed days. But he ’s 
deid — he ’s lyin’ deid amang the Hieland hills — 
the bonnie lad, the bonnie lad ! ” 

She had a rapt manner of crying on the bonnie 
lad, clasping her hands and casting up her eves, 
that I think she must have learned of strolling 
players; and I thought her sorrow very much of 
an affectation, and that she dwelled upon the busi- 
ness because her shame was now all she had to 


OF BALLANTRAE 


29 

be proud of. I will not say I did not pity her, 
but it was a loathing pity at the best; and her 
last change of manner wiped it out. This was 
when she had had enough of me for an audience 
and had set her name at last to the receipt. 
“ There ! ” says she, and taking the most un- 
womanly oaths upon her tongue, bade me begone 
and carry it to the Judas who had sent me. It 
was the first time I had heard the name applied 
to Mr. Henry; I was staggered besides at her 
sudden vehemence of word and manner; and got 
forth from the room, under this shower of curses, 
like a beaten dog. But even 'then I was not quit ; 
for the vixen threw up her window and, leaning 
forth, continued to revile me as I went up the 
wynd ; the freetraders, coming to the tavern door, 
joined in the mockery; and one had even the in- 
humanity to set upon me a very savage, small dog, 
which bit me in the ankle. This was a strong 
lesson, had I required one, to avoid ill company; 
and I rode home in much pain from the bite and 
considerable indignation of mind. 

Mr. Henry was in the steward’s room, affecting 
employment, but I could see he was only impa- 
tient to hear of my errand. 

“ Well ? ” says he, as soon as I came in ; and 
when I had told him something of what passed, 
and that Jessie seemed an undeserving woman and 


30 


THE MASTER 


far from grateful : “ She is no friend to me,” said 
he; “but indeed, Mackellar, I have few friends to 
boast of; and Jessie has some cause to be unjust. 
I need not dissemble what all the country knows: 
she was not very well used by one of our family.” 
This was the first time I had heard him refer to 
the Master even distantly; and I think he found 
his tongue rebellious, even for that much; but 
presently he resumed. “ This is why I would 
have nothing said. It would give pain to Mrs. 
Henry . . . and to my father,” he added with 
another flush. 

“ Mr. Henry,” said I, “ if you will take a free- 
dom at my hands, I would tell you to let that 
woman be. What service is your money to the 
like of her ? She has no sobriety and no economy ; 
as for gratitude, you will as soon get milk from 
a whinstone ; and if you will pretermit your bounty, 
it will make no change at all but just to save the 
ankles of your messengers.” 

Mr. Henry smiled. “ But I am grieved about 
your ankle,” said he, the next moment, with a 
proper gravity. 

“ And observe,” I continued, “ I give you this 
advice upon consideration; and yet my heart was 
touched for the woman in the beginning.” 

“ Why there it is, you see ! ” said Mr. Henry. 
“ And you are to remember that I knew her once 


OF BALLANTRAE 


3i 


a very decent lass. Besides which, although I 
speak little of my family, I think much of its 
repute. ,, 

And with that he broke up the talk, which was 
l the first we had together in such confidence. But 
the same afternoon, I had the proof that his father 
* was perfectly acquainted with the business, and 
that it was only from his wife that Mr. Henry 
kept it secret. 

“ I fear you had a painful errand to-day/’ says 
my lord to me: “ for which, as it enters in no way 
among your duties, I wish to thank you, and to 
remind you at the same time (in case Mr. Henry 
should have neglected) how very desirable it is 
that no word of it should reach my daughter. 
Reflections on the dead, Mr. Mackellar, are doubly 
painful.” 

Anger glowed in my heart; and I could have 
told my lord to his face how little he had to do, 
bolstering up the image of the dead in Mrs. Henry’s 
heart, and how much better he were employed, to 
shatter that false idol. For by this time, I saw 
very well how the land lay between my patron 
and his wife. 

My pen is clear enough to tell a plain tale; but 
to render the effect of an infinity of small things, 
not one great enough in itself to be narrated; 
and to translate the story of looks, and the mes- 


3 * 


THE MASTER 


sage of voices when they are saying no great 
matter; and to put in half a page the essence of 
near eighteen months: this is what I despair to 
accomplish. The fault, to be very blunt, lay all 
in Mrs. Henry. She felt it a merit to have con- 
sented to the marriage, and she took it like a 
martyrdom; in which my old lord, whether he 
knew it or not, fomented her. She made a merit, 
besides, of her constancy to the dead; though its 
name, to a nicer conscience, should have seemed 
rather disloyalty to the living; and here also my 
lord gave her his countenance. I suppose he was 
glad to talk of his loss, and ashamed to dwell on 
it with Mr. Henry. Certainly, at least, he made a 
little coterie apart in that family of three, and 
it was the husband who was shut out. It seems it 
was an old custom when the family were alone 
in Durrisdeer, that my lord should take his wine 
to the chimney-side, and Miss Alison (instead of 
withdrawing) should bring a stool to his knee and 
chatter to him privately; and after she had be- 
come my patron’s wife, the same manner of doing 
was continued. It should have been pleasant to 
behold this ancient gentleman so loving with his 
daughter ; but I was too much a partisan of 
Mr. Henry’s, to be anything but wroth at his ex- 
clusion. Many ’s the time I have seen him make 
an obvious resolve, quit the table, and go and 


OF BALLANTRAE 


33 


join himself to his wife and my Lord Durrisdeer; 
and on their part, they were never backward to 
make him welcome, turned to him smilingly as 
to an intruding child, and took him into their talk 
with an effort so ill-concealed that he was soon 
back again beside me at the table; whence (so 
great is the hall of Durrisdeer) we could but hear 
the murmur of voices at the chimney. There he 
would sit and watch, and I along with him; and 
sometimes by my lord’s head sorrowfully shaken, 
or his hand laid on Mrs. Henry’s head, or hers 
upon his knee as if in consolation, or sometimes 
by an exchange of tearful looks, we would draw 
our conclusion that the talk had gone to the old 
subject and the shadow of the dead was in the 
hall. 

I have hours when I blame Mr. Henry for tak- 
ing all too patiently; yet we are to remember he 
was married in pity, and accepted his wife upon 
that term/ And indeed he had small encourage- 
ment to make a stand. Once, I remember, he 
announced he had found a man to replace the 
pane of the stained window; which, as it was he 
that managed all the business, was a thing clearly 
within his attributions. But to the Master’s fan- 
ciers, that pane was like a relic; and on the first 
word of any change, the blood flew to Mrs. Henry’s 
face. 


34 


THE MASTER 


“ I wonder at you ! ” she cried. 

“ I wonder at myself,” says Mr. Henry, with 
more of bitterness than I had ever heard him to 
express. 

Thereupon my old lord stepped in with his 
, smooth talk, so that before the meal was at an 
end all seemed forgotten; only that, after dinner, 
when the pair had withdrawn as usual to the 
chimney-side, we could see her weeping with her 
head upon his knee. Mr. Henry kept up the talk 
with me upon some topic of the estates — he could 
speak of little else but business, and was never the 
best of company; but he kept it up that day with 
more continuity, his eye straying ever and again 
to the chimney and his voice changing to another 
key, but without check of delivery. The pane, 
however, was not replaced ; and I believe he 
counted it a great defeat. 

Whether he was stout enough or no, God knows 
he was kind enough. Mrs. Henry had a manner 
of condescension with him, such as (in a wife) 
would have pricked my vanity into an ulcer; he 
'took it like a favour. She held him at the staff’s 
end; forgot and then remembered and unbent to 
him, as we do to children; burthened him with 
cold kindness; reproved him with a change of 
colour and a bitten lip, like one shamed by his 
disgrace; ordered him with a look of the eye, 


O F BALLANTRAE 


35 

when she was off her guard; when she was on 
the watch, pleaded with him for the most natural 
attentions as though they were unheard of favours. 
And to all this, he replied with the most unwearied 
service; loving, as folks say, the very ground she 
trod on, and carrying that love in his eyes as 
bright as a lamp. When Miss Katharine was to 
be born, nothing would serve but he must stay in 
the room behind the head of the bed. There he 
sat, as white (they tell me) as a sheet and the 
sweat dropping from his brow; and the handker- 
chief he had in his hand was crushed into a little 
ball no bigger than a musket bullet. Nor could he 
bear the sight of Miss Katharine for many a day; 
indeed I doubt if he was ever what he should 
have been to my young lady; for the which want 
of natural feeling, he was loudly blamed. 

Such was the state of this family down to the 
7th April, 1749, when there befell the first of that 
series of events which were to break so many 
hearts and lose so many lives. 

On that day I was sitting in my room a little 
before supper, when John Paul burst open the 
door with no civility of knocking, and told me 
there was one below that wished to speak with 
the steward; sneering at the name of my office. 

I asked what manner of man, and what his name 


THE MASTER 


36 

was; and this disclosed the cause of John’s ill- 
humour; for it appeared the visitor refused to 
name himself except to me, a sore affront to the 
major-domo’s consequence. 

“ Well,” said I, smiling a little, “ I will see 
what he wants.” 

I found in the entrance hall a big man very 
plainly habited and wrapped in a sea-cloak, like 
one new landed, as indeed he was. Not far off 
Macconochie was standing, with his tongue out 
of his mouth and his hand upon his chin, like a 
dull fellow thinking hard; and the stranger, who 
had brought his cloak about his face, appeared 
uneasy. He had no sooner seen me coming than 
he went to meet me with an effusive manner. 

“ My dear man,” said he, “ a thousand apolo- 
gies for disturbing you, but I ’m in the most awk- 
ward position. And there ’s a son of a ramrod 
there that I should know the looks of, and more 
betoken I believe that he knows mine. Being in 
this family, sir, and in a place of some responsi- 
bility (which was the cause I took the liberty to 
send for you), you are doubtless of the honest 
party? ” 

“ You may be sure at least,” says I, “ that all 
of that party are quite safe in Durrisdeer.” 

“ My dear man, it is my very thought,” says 
he. “ You see I have just been set on shore here 


OF BALLANTRAE 


37 

by a very honest man, whose name I cannot re- 
member, and who is to stand off and on for me 
till morning, at some danger to himself; and, to 
be clear with you, I am a little concerned lest it 
should be at some to me. I have saved my life 
so often, Mr. — I forget your name, which is a 
very good one — that, faith, I would be very loath 
to lose it after all. And the son of a ramrod, 
whom I believe I saw before Carlisle . . 

“ O, sir,” said I, “ you can trust Macconochie 
until to-morrow.” 

4 4 Well, and it ’s a delight to hear you say so,” 
says the stranger. 44 The truth is that my name 
is not a very suitable one in this country of Scot- 
land. With a gentleman like you, my dear man, 
I would have no concealments of course; and by 
your leave, I ’ll just breathe it in your ear. They 
call me Francis Burke: Colonel Francis Burke; 
and I am here, at a most damnable risk to my- 
self, to see your masters — if you ’ll excuse me, 
my good man, for giving them the name, for 
I ’m sure it ’s a circumstance I would never have 
guessed from your appearance. And if you would 
be just so very obliging as to take my name to 
them, you might say that I come bearing letters 
which I am sure they will be very rejoiced to 
have the reading of.” 

Colonel Francis Burke was one of the Prince’s 


THE MASTER 


38 

Irishmen, that did his cause such an infinity of 
hurt and were so much distasted of the Scots at 
the time of the rebellion; and it came at once 
into my mind, how the Master of Ballantrae had 
astonished all men by going with that party. In 
the same moment, a strong foreboding of the 
truth possessed my soul. 

“ If you will step in here,” said I, opening a 
chamber door, “ I will let my lord know.” 

“ And I am sure it ’s very good of you, Mr. 
What-is-your-name,” says the Colonel. 

Up to the hall I went, slow footed. There they 
were all three, my old lord in his place, Mrs. 
Henry at work by the window, Mr. Henry (as 
was much his custom) pacing the low end. In 
the midst was the table laid for supper. I told 
them briefly what I had to say. My old lord lay 
back in his seat. Mrs. Henry sprang up standing 
with a mechanical motion, and she and her husband 
stared at each other’s eyes across the room; it 
was the strangest, challenging look these two ex- 
changed, and as they looked, the colour faded in 
their faces. Then Mr. Henry turned to me; not 
to speak, only to sign with his finger ; but that was 
enough, and I went down again for the Colonel. 

When we returned, these three were in much 
the same position I had left them in ; I believe no 
word had passed. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


39 

“ My Lord Durrisdeer no doubt ? ” says the 
Colonel, bowing, and my lord bowed in answer. 
“ And this,’’ continues the Colonel, “ should be 
the Master of Ballantrae ? ” 

“ I have never taken that name,” said Mr. 
Henry ; “ but I am Henry Durie at your service.” 

Then the Colonel turns to Mrs. Henry, bowing 
with his hat upon his heart and the most killing 
airs of gallantry. “ There can be no mistake about 
so fine a figure of a lady,” says he. “ I address 
the seductive Miss Alison, of whom I have so 
often heard ? ” 

Once more husband and wife exchanged a look. 

“ I am Mrs. Henry Durie,” said she ; “ but be- 
fore my marriage my name was Alison Graeme.” 

Then my lord spoke up. “ I am an old man. 
Colonel Burke,” said he, “ and a frail one. It 
will be mercy on your part to be expeditious. Do 
you bring me news of — ” he hesitated, and then 
the words broke from him with a singular change 
of voice — “ my son ? ” 

“ My dear lord, I will be round with you like 
a soldier,” said the Colonel. “ I do.” 

My lord held out a wavering hand ; he seemed 
to wave a signal, but whether it was to give him 
time or to speak on, was more than we could 
guess. At length, he got out the one word — 
“ Good?” 


4 o 


THE MASTER 


“ Why, the very best in the creation ! ” cries 
the Colonel. “ For my good friend and admired 
comrade is at this hour in the fine city of Paris, 
and as like as not, if I know anything of his 
habits, he will be drawing in his chair to a 
piece of dinner. — Bedad, I believe the lady ’s 
fainting/’ 

Mrs. Henry was indeed the colour of death, and 
drooped against the window-frame. But when Mr. 
Henry made a movement as if to run to her, she 
straightened with a sort of shiver. “ I am well,” 
she said, with her white lips. 

Mr. Henry stopped, and his face had a strong 
twitch of anger. The next moment, he had turned 
to the Colonel. “ You must not blame yourself,” 
says he, “ for this effect on Mrs. Durie. It is only 
natural; we were all brought up like brother and 
sister.” 

Mrs. Henry looked at her husband with some- 
thing like relief or even gratitude. In my way 
of thinking, that speech was the first step he made 
in her good graces. 

“ You must try to forgive me, Mrs. Durie, for 
indeed and I am just an Irish savage,” said the 
Colonel : “ and I deserve to be shot for not break- 
ing the matter more artistically to a lady. But 
here are the Master’s own letters; one for each 
of the three of you; and to be sure (if I know 


OF BALLANTRAE 


4i 

anything of my friend’s genius) he will tell his 
own story with a better grace.” 

He brought the three letters forth as he spoke, 
arranged them by their superscriptions, presented 
the first to my lord, who took it greedily, and 
advanced towards Mrs. Henry holding out the 
second. 

But the lady waved it back. “To my husband,” 
says she, with a choked voice. 

The Colonel was a quick man, but at this he 
was somewhat non-plussed. “ To be sure,” says 
he, “how very dull of me! To be sure.” But 
he still held the letter. 

At last Mr. Henry reached forth his hand, and 
there was nothing to be done but give it up. 
Mr. Henry took the letters (both hers and his 
own) and looked upon their outside, with his 
brows knit hard as if he were thinking. He had 
surprised me all through by his excellent beha- 
viour; but he was to excel himself now. 

“ Let me give you a hand to your room,” said 
he to his wife. “ This has come something of the 
suddenest; and at any rate, you will wish to read 
your letter by yourself.” 

Again she looked upon him with the same 
thought of wonder; but he gave her no time, 
coming straight to where she stood. “ It will be 
better so, believe me,” said he, “ and Colonel 


42 


THE MASTER 


Burke is too considerate not to excuse you.” 
And with that he took her hand by the fingers, 
and led her from the hall. 

Mrs. Henry returned no more that night; and 
when Mr. Henry went to visit her next morning, 
as I heard long afterwards, she gave him the letter 
again, still unopened. 

“ O, read it and be done ! ” he had cried. 

“ Spare me that,” said she. 

And by these two speeches, to my way of think- 
ing, each undid a great part of what they had 
previously done well. But the letter, sure enough, 
came into my hands and by me was burned, 
unopened. 

To be very exact as to the adventures of the 
Master after Culloden, I wrote not long ago to 
Colonel Burke, now a Chevalier of the Order of 
St. Louis, begging him for some notes in writing, 
since I could scarce depend upon my memory at 
so great an interval. To confess the truth, I have 
been somewhat embarrassed by his response; for 
he sent me the complete memoirs of his life, touch- 
ing only in places on the Master; running to a 
much greater length than my whole story, and not 
everywhere (as it seems to me) designed for edi- 
fication. He begged in his letter, dated from 
Ettenheim, that I would find a publisher for the 


OF BALLANTRAE 


43 


whole, after I had made what use of it I required ; 
and I think I shall best answer my own purpose 
and fulfil his wishes by printing certain parts of 
it in full. In this way my readers will have a 
detailed and I believe a very genuine account of 
some essential matters ; and if any publisher should 
take a fancy to the Chevalier’s manner of narra- 
tion, he knows where to apply for the rest, of 
which there is plenty at his service. I put in my 
first extract here, so that it may stand in the place 
of what the Chevalier told us over our wine in 
the hall of Durrisdeer; but you are to suppose it 
was not the brutal fact, but a very varnished ver- 
sion that he offered to my lord. 




44 


THE MASTER 


THE MASTER’S WANDERINGS 

From, the Memoirs of the Chevalier de Burke 

I LEFT Ruthven ( it ’s hardly necessary to 
remark) with much greater satisfaction 
than I had come to it ; but whether I 
missed my way in the deserts, or whether my 
, companions failed me, I soon found myself alone. 
This was a predicament very disagreeable; for I 
never understood this horrid country or savage 
people, and the last stroke of the Prince’s with- 
drawal had made us of the Irish more unpopular 
than ever. I was reflecting on my poor chances, 
when I saw another horseman on the hill, whom 
I supposed at first to have been a phantom, the 
news of his death in the very front at Culloden 
being current in the army generally. This was 
the Master of Ballantrae, my Lord Durrisdeer’s 
son, a young nobleman of the rarest gallantry 
and parts, and equally designed by nature to 
adorn a court and to reap laurels in the field. 
Our meeting was the more welcome to both, as 
he was one of the few Scots who had used the 
Irish with consideration and as he might now be 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


45 

of very high utility in aiding my escape. Yet 
what founded our particular friendship was a cir- 
cumstance by itself, as romantic as any fable of 
King Arthur. 

This was on the second day of our flight, after 
we had slept one night in the rain upon the in- 
clination of a mountain. There was an Appin 
man, Alan Black Stewart (or some such name , 1 
but I have seen him since in France), who chanced 
to be passing the same way, and had a jealousy 
of my companion. Very uncivil expressions were 
exchanged; and Stewart calls upon the Master to 
alight and have it out. 

“ Why, Mr. Stewart,” says the Master, “ I 
think at the present time I would prefer to run 
a race with you.” And with the word claps spurs 
to his horse. 

Stewart ran after us, a childish thing to do, for 
i more than a mile ; and I could not help laughing, 
as I looked back at last and saw him on a hill, 
holding his hand to his side and nearly burst with 
| running. 

“ But all the same,” I could not help saying to 
my companion, “ I would let no man run after me 
for any such proper purpose, and not give him 

1 Note by Mr. Mackellar. Should not this be Alan Breck 
Stewart, afterwards notorious as the Appin murderer? The 
j Chevalier is sometimes very weak on names. 


THE MASTER 


46 

his desire. It was a good jest, but it smells a 
trifle cowardly/’ 

He bent his brows at me. “ I do pretty well,” 
says he, “ when I saddle myself with the most un- 
popular man in Scotland, and let that suffice for 
courage.” 

“ O, bedad,” says I, “ I could show you a more 
unpopular with the naked eye. And if you like 
not my company, you can ‘ saddle ’ yourself on 
some one else.” 

“ Colonel Burke,” says he, “ do not let us quar-1 
rel ; and to that effect, let me assure you I am the 
least patient man in the world.” 

“ I am as little patient as yourself,” said I. “ I 1 
care not who knows that.” 

“ At this rate,” says he, reining in, “ we shall 
not go very far. And I propose we do one of 
two things upon the instant : either quarrel and be 
done; or make a sure bargain to bear everything 
at each other’s hands.” 

“ Like a pair of brothers ? ” said I. 

“ I said no such foolishness,” he replied. “ I 
have a brother of my own, and I think no more 
of him than of a colewort. But if we are to have 
our noses rubbed together in this course of flight, 
let us each dare to be ourselves like savages, and 
each swear that he will neither resent nor dep- 
recate the other. I am a pretty bad fellow at! 


OF BALLANTRAE 47 

bottom, and I find the pretence of virtues very 
irksome.” 

“ O, I am as bad as yourself,” said I. “ There 
is no skim milk in Francis Burke. But which is 
it to be? Fight or make friends?” 

“ Why,” says he, “ I think it will be the best 
manner to spin a coin for it.” 

This proposition was too highly chivalrous not 
to take my fancy; and strange as it may seem of 
two well-born gentlemen of to-day, we span a half- 
crown (like a pair of ancient paladins) whether 
: we were to cut each other’s throats or be sworn 
friends. A more romantic circumstance can rarely 
have occurred ; and it is one of those points in my 
memoirs by which we may see the old tales of 
Homer and the poets are equally true to-day, at 
least of the noble and genteel. The coin fell for 
peace, and we shook hands upon our bargain. And 
then it was that my companion explained to me 
his thought in running away from Mr. Stewart, 
which was certainly worthy of his political intel- 
lect. The report of his death, he said, was a great 
guard to him ; Mr. Stewart having recognised him, 
had become a danger; and he had taken the brief- 
est road to that gentleman’s silence. “ For,” says 
he, “ Alan Black is too vain a man to narrate any 
such story of himself.” 

Towards afternoon, we came down to the shores 


THE MASTER 


48 

of that loch for which' we were heading ; and there 
was the ship but newly come to anchor. She was 
the Sainte-Marie-des-Anges, out of the port of 
Havre-de-Grace. The Master, after we had sig- 
nalled for a boat, asked me if I knew the captain. 
I told him he was a countryman of mine, of the 
most unblemished integrity, but, I was afraid, a 
rather timorous man. 

“ No matter,” says he. “ For all that, he should 
certainly hear the truth.” 

I asked him if he meant about the battle ? for if 
the captain once knew the standard was down, he 
would certainly put to sea again at once. 

“ And even then! ” said he; “ the arms are now 
of no sort of utility.” 

“ My dear man,” said I, “ who thinks of the 
arms? But to be sure we must remember our 
friends. They will be close upon our heels, 
perhaps the Prince himself, and if the ship be 
gone, a great number of valuable lives may be 
imperilled.” 

“ The captain and the crew have lives also, if you 
come to that,” says Ballantrae. 

This I declared was but a quibble, and that I 
would not hear of the captain being told : and then 
it was that Ballantrae made me a witty answer for 
the sake of which (and also because I have been 
blamed myself in this business of the Sainte-Maric - 


OF BALLANTRAE 


49 


des-Anges) I have related the whole conversation 
as it passed. 

“ Frank,” says he, “ remember our bargain. I 
must not object to your holding your tongue, which 
I hereby even encourage you to do; but by the 
same terms, you are not to resent my telling.” 

I could not help laughing at this; though I still 
forewarned him what would come of it. 

“ The devil may come of it for what I care,” says 
the reckless fellow. “ I have always done exactly 
as I felt inclined.” 

As is well known, my prediction came true. The 
captain had no sooner heard the news, than he cut 
his cable and to sea again; and before morning 
broke, we were in the Great Minch. 

The ship was very old ; and the skipper although 
the most honest of men (and Irish too) was one 
of the least capable. The wind blew very boister- 
ous, and the sea raged extremely. All that day 
we had little heart whether to eat or drink; went, 
early to rest in some concern of mind; and (as if 
to give us a lesson) in the night, the wind chopped 
suddenly into the north-east, and blew a hurri- 
cane. We were awaked by the dreadful thunder 
of the tempest and the stamping of the mariners 
on deck; so that I supposed our last hour was 
certainly come; and the terror of my mind was 
increased out of all measure by Ballantrae, who 


5 ° 


THE MASTER 


mocked at my devotions. It is in hours like these 
that a man of any piety appears in his true light, 
and we find (what we are taught as babes) the 
small trust that can be set in worldly friends: I 
would be unworthy of my religion, if I let this pass 
without particular remark. For three days we lay 
in the dark in the cabin, and had but a biscuit to 
nibble. On the fourth, the wind fell, leaving the 
ship dismasted and heaving on vast billows. The 
captain had not a guess of whither we were blown ; 
he was stark ignorant of his trade, and could do 
naught but bless the Holy Virgin: a very good 
thing too, but scarce the whole of seamanship. It 
seemed our one hope was to be picked up by an- 
other vessel; and if that should prove to be an 
English ship, it might be no great blessing to the 
Master and myself. 

The fifth and sixth days we tossed there help- 
less. The seventh, some sail was got on her, but 
she was an unwieldy vessel at the best, and we made l 
little but leeway. All the time, indeed, we had 
been drifting to the south and west, and during the 
tempest must have driven in that direction with ■ 
unheard of violence. The ninth dawn was cold i 
and black, with a great sea running, and every 
mark of foul weather. In this situation, we were 
overjoyed to sight a small ship on the horizon, and 
to perceive her go about and head for the Sainte - 


OF BALLANTRAE 


5 1 


Marie. But our gratification did not very long 
endure; for when she had laid to and lowered a 
boat, it was immediately filled with disorderly fel- 
lows, who sang and shouted as they pulled across 
to us, and swarmed in on our deck with bare cut- 
lasses, cursing loudly. Their leader was a horrible 
villain, with his face blacked and his whiskers 
curled in ringlets: Teach, his name; a most notori- 
ous pirate. He stamped about the deck, raving and 
crying out that his name was Satan and his ship 
was called Hell. There was something about him 
like a wicked child or a half-witted person, that 
daunted me beyond expression. I whispered in 
the ear of Ballantrae, that I would not be the last 
to volunteer and only prayed God they might be 
short of hands : he approved my purpose with a 
nod. 

t “ Bedad,” said I, to Master Teach, “ if you are 
Satan, here is a divil for ye.” 

The word pleased him ; and (not to dwell upon 
these shocking incidents) Ballantrae and I and two 
others were taken for recruits, while the skipper 
and all the rest were cast into the sea by the method 
of walking the plank. It was the first time I had 
seen this done- my heart died within me at the 
spectacle; and Master Teach or one of his acolytes 
(for my head was too mu6h lost to be precise) 
remarked upon my pale face in a very alarming 


5 2 


THE MASTER 


manner. I had the strength to cut a step or two 
of a jig and cry out some ribaldry, which saved 
me for that time; but my legs were like water 
when I must get down into the skiff among these 
miscreants ; and what with my horror of my com- 
pany and fear of the monstrous billows, it was all I 
could do to keep an Irish tongue and break a jest 
or two as we were pulled aboard. By the blessing 
of God, there was a fiddle in the pirate ship, which 
I had no sooner seen than I fell upon ; and in my 
quality of crowder, I had the heavenly good luck 
to get favour in their eyes. Crowding Pat was 
the name they dubbed me with; and it was little 
I cared for a name so long as my skin was whole. 

What kind of a pandemonium that vessel was, 
I cannot describe, but she was commanded by a 
lunatic, and might be called a floating Bedlam. 
Drinking, roaring, singing, quarrelling, dancing, 
they were never all sober at one time; and there 
were days together, when if a squall had super- 
vened, it must have sent us to the bottom, or if a 
king’s ship had come along, it would have found 
us quite helpless for defence. Once or twice, we 
sighted a sail, and if we were sober enough, over- 
hauled it, God forgive us! and if we were all too 
drunk, she got away, and I would bless the saints 
under my breath. Teach ruled, if you can call that 
rule which brought no order, by the terror he 


OF BALLANTRAE 


S3 

created ; and I observed the man was very vain of 
his position. I have known marshals of France, ay, 
and even Highland chieftains that were less openly 
puffed up; which throws a singular light on the 
pursuit of honour and glory. Indeed the longer 
we live, the more we perceive the sagacity of 
Aristotle and the other old philosophers ; and 
though I have all my life been eager for legitimate 
distinctions, I can lay my hand upon my heart, at 
the end of my career, and declare there is not one 
— no, nor yet life itself — which is worth acquiring 
or preserving at the slightest cost of dignity. 

It was long before I got private speech of 
Ballantrae; but at length one night we crept out 
upon the boltsprit, when the rest were better em- 
ployed, and commiserated our position. 

“ None can deliver us but the saints,” said I. 

“ My mind is very different,” said Ballantrae; 
“ for I am going to deliver myself. This Teach 
is the poorest creature possible ; we make no profit 
of him and lie continually open to capture; and,” 
says he, “ I am not going to be a tarry pirate for 
nothing, nor yet to hang in chains if I can help 
it.” And he told me what was in his mind to better 
the state of the ship in the way of discipline, which 
would give us safety for the present, and a sooner 
hope of deliverance when they should have gained 
enough and should break up their company. 


54 


THE MASTER 


I confessed to him ingenuously that my nerve 
was quite shook amid these horrible surroundings, 
and I durst scarce tell him to count upon me. 

“ I am not very easy frightened,” said he, “ nor 
very easy beat.” 

A few days after, there befell an accident which 
had nearly hanged us all; and offers the most ex- 
traordinary picture of the folly that ruled in our 
concerns. We were all pretty drunk: and some 
bedlamite spying a sail, Teach put the ship about 
in chase without a glance, and we began to bustle 
up the arms and boast of the horrors that should 
follow. I observed Ballantrae stood quiet in the 
bows, looking under the shade of his hand; but 
for my part, true to my policy among these sav- 
ages, I was at work with the busiest and passing 
Irish jests for their diversion. 

“ Run up the colours,” cries Teach. “ Show 
the s the Jolly Roger ! ” 

It was the merest drunken braggadocio at such 
a stage, and might have lost us a valuable prize; 
but I thought it no part of mine to reason, and I 
ran up the black flag with my own hand. 

Ballantrae steps presently aft with a smile upon 
his face. 

“ You may perhaps like to know, you drunken 
dog,” says he, “ that you are chasing a king’s ship.” 

Teach roared him the lie; but he ran at the same 


OF BALLANTRAE 


55 


time to the bulwarks, and so did they all. I have 
never seen so many drunken men struck suddenly 
! sober. The cruiser had gone about, upon our im- 
pudent display of colours ; she was just then filling 
on the new tack; her ensign blew out quite plain 
to see; and even as we stared, there came a puff 
of smoke, and then a report, and a shot plunged 
in the waves a good way short of us. Some ran to 
the ropes, and got the Sarah round with an incred- 
ible swiftness. One fellow fell on the rum barrel, 
which stood broached upon the deck, and rolled 
it promptly overboard. On my part, I made for 
the Jolly Roger, struck it, tossed it in the sea; and 
could have flung myself after, so vexed was I with 
our mismanagement. As for Teach, he grew as 
pale as death, and incontinently went down to his 
cabin. Only twice he came on deck that after- 
noon ; went to the taffrail ; took a long look at the 
king’s ship, which was still on the horizon heading 
after us; and then, without speech, back to his 
cabin. You may say he deserted us ; and if it had 
not been for one very capable sailor we had on 
board, and for the lightness of the airs that blew 
all day, we must certainly have gone to the yard- 
arm. 

It is to be supposed Teach was humiliated, and 
perhaps alarmed for his position with the crew; 
and the way in which he set about regaining what 


THE MASTER 


5 6 

he had lost, was highly characteristic of the man. 
Early next day, we smelled him burning sulphur' 
in his cabin and crying out of “ Hell, hell ! ” which 
was well understood among the crew, and filled 
their minds with apprehension. Presently he comes 
on deck, a perfect figure of fun, his face blacked, 
his hair and whiskers curled, his belt stuck full of 
pistols; chewing bits of glass so that the blood 
ran down his chin, and brandishing a dirk. I do 
not know if he had taken these manners from the 
Indians of America, where he was a native; but 
such was his way, and he would always thus an- 
nounce that he was wound up to horrid deeds. 
The first that came near him was the fellow who: 
had sent the rum overboard the day before; him 
he stabbed to the heart, damning him for a mu- 
tineer; and then capered about the body, raving 
and swearing and daring us to come on. It was 
the silliest exhibition; and yet dangerous too, for 
the cowardly fellow was plainly working himself 
up to another murder. 

All of a sudden, Ballantrae stepped forth. 
“ Have done with this play-acting,” says he. “ Do 
you think to frighten us with making faces? We 
saw nothing of you yesterday when you were 
wanted; and we did well without you, let me tell 
you that.” 

There was a murmur and a movement in the 


OF BALLANTRAE 


57 

crew, of pleasure and alarm, I thought, in nearly 
equal parts. As for Teach, he gave a barbarous 
howl, and swung his dirk to fling it, an art in which 
(like many seamen) he was very expert. 

“ Knock that out of his hand! ” says Ballantrae, 
so sudden and sharp that my arm obeyed him be- 
fore my mind had understood. 

Teach stood like one stupid, never thinking on 
i his pistols. 

“ Go down to your cabin,” cries Ballantrae, 
“ and come on deck again when you are sober. 
Do you think we are going to hang for you, 
you black-faced, half-witted, drunken brute and 
butcher? Go down!” And he stamped his foot 
at him with such a sudden smartness that Teach 
fairly ran for it to the companion. 

“ And now, mates,” says Ballantrae, “ a word 
with you. I don’t know if you are gentlemen of 
fortune for the fun of the thing; but I am not. I 
want to make money, and get ashore again, and 
spend it like a man. And on one thing my mind 
is made up : I will not hang if I can help it. Come : 
give me a hint ; I ’m only a beginner ! Is there no 
way to get a little discipline and common-sense 
about this business ? ” 

One of the men spoke up : he said by rights they 
should have a quartermaster; and no sooner was 
the word out of his mouth, than they were all of 


THE MASTER 


58 

that opinion. The thing went by acclamation, Bal- 
lantrae was made quartermaster, the rum was put 
in his charge, laws were passed in imitation of 
those of a pirate by the name of Roberts ; and the 
last proposal was to make an end of Teach. But 
Ballantrae was afraid of a more efficient captain, 
who might be a counterweight to himself, and he 
opposed this stoutly. Teach, he said, was good 
enough to board ships and frighten fools with his 
blacked face and swearing; we could scarce get a 
better man than Teach for that; and besides as the 
man was now disconsidered and as good as deposed, 
we might reduce his proportion of the plunder. 
This carried it; Teach’s share was cut down to a 
mere derision, being actually less than mine; and 
there remained only two points : whether he would 
consent, and who was to announce to him this 
resolution. 

“ Do not let that stick you,” says Ballantrae, 
•“ I will do that.” 

And he stepped to the companion and down 
alone into the cabin to face that drunken 
■savage. 

“ This is the man for us,” cries one of the hands. 
“ Three cheers for the quartermaster ! ” which 
were given with a will, my own voice among the 
loudest, and I dare say these plaudits had their 
effect on Master Teach in the cabin, as we have 


OF BALLANTRAE 


59 

seen of late days how shouting in the streets may 
trouble even the minds of legislators. 

What passed precisely was never known, though 
some of the heads of it came to the surface later 
on; and we were all amazed as well as gratified, 
when Ballantrae came on deck with Teach upon 
his arm, and announced that all had been consented. 

I pass swiftly over those twelve or fifteen months 
in which we continued to keep the sea in the North 
Atlantic, getting our food and water from the ships 
we overhauled and doing on the whole a pretty 
fortunate business. Sure no one could wish to 
read anything so ungenteel as the memoirs of a 
pirate, even an unwilling one like me! Things 
went extremely better with our designs, and Bal- 
lantrae kept his lead to my admiration from that 
day forth. I would be tempted to suppose that 
a gentleman must everywhere be first, even aboard 
a rover; but my birth is every whit as good as 
any Scottish lord's, and I am not ashamed to con- 
fess that I stayed Crowding Pat until the end, and 
was not much better than the crew’s buffoon. In- 
deed it was no scene to bring out my merits. My 
health suffered from a variety of reasons; I was 
more at home to the last on a horse’s back than 
a ship’s deck ; and to be ingenuous, the fear of the 
sea was constantly in my mind, battling with the 
fear of my companions. I need not cry myself up 


6o THEMASTER 

for courage ; I have done well on many fields under 
the eyes of famous generals, and earned my late 
advancement by an act of the most distinguished 
valour before many witnesses. But when we must 
proceed on one of our abordages, the heart of 
Francis Burke was in his boots; the little egg- 
shell skiff in which we must set forth, the horrible 
heaving of the vast billows, the height of the ship 
that we must scale, the thought of how many might 
be there in garrison upon their legitimate defence, 
the scowling heavens which (in that climate) so 
often looked darkly down upon our exploits, and 
the mere crying of the wind in my ears, were all 
considerations most unpalatable to my valour. Be- 
sides which, as I was always a creature of the 
nicest sensibility, the scenes that must follow on 
our success tempted me as little as the chances of 
defeat. Twice we found women on board; and 
though I have seen towns sacked, and of late days 
in France some very horrid public tumults, there 
was something in the smallness of the numbers 
engaged and the bleak, dangerous sea-surroundings 
that made these acts of piracy far the most revolt- 
ing. I confess ingenuously I could never proceed, 
unless I was three parts drunk; it was the same 
even with the crew; Teach himself was fit for 
no enterprise till he was full of rum; and it was 
one of the most difficult parts of Ballantrae’s 


OF BALLANTRAE 6 i 

performance, to serve us with liquor in the proper 
quantities. Even this he did to admiration ; being 
upon the whole the most capable man I ever met 
with, and the one of the most natural genius. He 
did not even scrape favour with the crew, as I did, 
by continual buffoonery made upon a very anxious 
heart; but preserved on most occasions a great 
deal of gravity and distance; so that he was like 
a parent among a family of young children or a 
schoolmaster with his boys. What made his part 
the harder to perform, the men were most in- 
veterate grumblers; Ballantrae’s discipline, little 
; as it was, was yet irksome to their love of license; 
and what was worse, being kept sober they had 
time to think. Some of them accordingly would 
fall to repenting their abominable crimes; one in 
particular, who was a good Catholic and with whom 
I would sometimes steal apart for prayer; above 
all in bad weather, fogs, lashing rain and the like, 
when we would be the less observed ; and I am sure 
no two criminals in the cart have ever performed 
their devotions with more anxious sincerity. But 
the rest having no such grounds of hope, fell to 
another pastime, that of computation. All day long 
they would be telling up their shares or glooming 
over the result. I have said we were pretty fortu- 
nate. But an observation fails to be made : that in 
this world, in no business that I have tried, do the 


62 


THE MASTER 


profits rise to a man’s expectations. We found 
many ships and took many; yet few of them con- 
tained much money, their goods were usually 
nothing to our purpose — what did we want with 
a cargo of ploughs or even of tobacco ? — and it 
is quite a painful reflection how many whole crews 
we have made to walk the plank for no more than 
a stock of biscuit or an anker or two of spirit. 

In the meanwhile, our ship was growing very 
foul, and it was high time we should make for our 
port de carrenage, which was in the estuary of a 
river among swamps. It was openly understood 
that we should then break up and go and squander 
our proportions of the spoil; and this made every 
man greedy of a little more, so that our decision 
was delayed from day to day. What finally de- 
cided matters was a trifling accident, such as an 
ignorant person might suppose incidental to our 
way of life. But here I must explain : on only one 
of all the ships we boarded, the first on which we 
found women, did we meet with any genuine re- 
sistance. On that occasion, we had two men 
killed, and several injured, and if it had not been 
for the gallantry of Ballantrae, we had surely been 
beat back at last. Everywhere else, the defence 
(where there was any at all) was what the worst 
troops in Europe would have laughed at; so that 
the most dangerous part of our employment was 


OF BALLANTRAE 63 

to clamber up the side of the ship ; and I have even 
known the poor souls on board to cast us a line, so 
eager were they to volunteer instead of walking the 
plank. This constant immunity had made our fel- 
lows very soft, so that I understood how Teach 
had made so deep a mark upon their minds; for 
indeed the company of that lunatic was the chief 
] danger in our way of life. The accident to which 
I have referred was this. We had sighted a little 
full-rigged ship very close under our board in a 
haze ; she sailed near as well as we did — I should 
be nearer truth, if I said near as ill ; and we cleared 
the bow-chaser to see if we could bring a spar or 
two about their ears. The swell was exceeding 
great; the motion of the ship beyond description; 
it was little wonder if our gunners should fire 
thrice and be still quite broad of what they aimed 
at. But in the meanwhile, the chase had cleared 
a stern gun, the thickness of the air concealing 
them; and being better marksmen, their first shot 
struck us in the bows, knocked our two gunners 
into mince meat, so that we were all sprinkled with 
the blood, and plunged through the deck into the 
forecastle, where we slept. Ballantrae would have 
held on; indeed there was nothing in this contre- 
temps to affect the mind of any soldier; but he 
had a quick perception of the men’s wishes, and it 
was plain this lucky shot had given them a sickener 


64 THE MASTER 

of their trade. In a moment, they were all of one 
mind : the chase was drawing away from us, it 
was needless to hold on, the Sarah was too foul 
to overhaul a bottle, it was mere foolery to keep the 
sea with her; and on these pretended grounds, her 
head was incontinently put about and the course 
laid for the river. It was strange to see what mer- 
riment fell on that ship’s company, and how they 
stamped about the deck jesting, and each comput- 
ing what increase had come to his share by the 
death of the two gunners. 

We were nine days making our port, so light 
were the airs we had to sail on, so foul the ship’s 
bottom; but early on the tenth, before dawn, and 
in a light, lifting haze, we passed the head. A 
little after, the haze lifted, and fell again, showing 
us a cruiser very close. This was a sore blow, 
happening so near out refuge. There was a great 
debate of whether she had seen us, * and if so 
whether it was likely they had recognised the Sarah. 
We were very careful, by destroying every mem- 
ber of those crews we overhauled, to leave no 
evidence as to our own persons; but the appear- 
ance of the Sarah herself we could not keep so 
private; and above all of late, since she had been 
foul and we had pursued many ships without suc- 
cess, it was plain that her description had been 
often published. I supposed this alert would have 


OF BALLANTRAE 65 

made us separate upon the instant. But here again 
that original genius of Ballantrae’s had a surprise 
in store for me. He and Teach (and it was the 
most remarkable step of his success) had gone 
hand in hand since the first day of his appoint- 
ment. I often questioned him upon the fact and 
never got an answer but once, when he told me he 
and Teach had an understanding “ which would 
very much surprise the crew if they should hear 
of it, and would surprise himself a good deal if 
it was carried out.” Well, here again, he and 
Teach were of a mind ; and by their joint procure- 
ment, the anchor was no sooner down, than the 
whole crew went off upon a scene of drunkenness 
indescribable. By afternoon we were a mere ship- 
ful of lunatical persons, throwing of things over- 
board, howling of different songs at the same time, 
quarrelling and falling together and then forgetting 
our quarrels to embrace. Ballantrae had bidden 
me drink nothing and feign drunkenness as I 
valued my life ; and I have never passed a day so 
wearisomely, lying the best part of the time upon 
the forecastle and watching the swamps and thickets 
by which our little basin was entirely surrounded 
for the eye. A little after dusk, Ballantrae stum- 
bled up to my side, feigned to fall, with a drunken 
laugh, and before he got his feet again, whispered 
me to “ reel down into the cabin and seem to fall 


66 THE MASTER 

asleep upon a locker, for there would be need of me 
soon.” I did as I was told, and coming into the 
cabin, where it was quite dark, let myself fall on 
the first locker. There was a man there already ; 
by the way he stirred and threw me off, I could not 
think he was much in liquor; and yet when I had 
found another place, he seemed to continue to sleep 
on. My heart now beat very hard, for I saw some 
desperate matter was in act. Presently down came 
Ballantrae, lit the lamp, looked about the cabin, 
nodded as if pleased, and on deck again without 
a word. I peered out from between my fingers, 
and saw there were three of us slumbering, or 
feigning to slumber, on the lockers: myself, one 
Dutton and one Grady, both resolute men. On 
deck, the rest were got to a pitch of revelry quite 
beyond the bounds of what is human; so that no 
reasonable name can describe the sounds they were 
now making. I have heard many a drunken bout 
in my time, many on board that very Sarah , but 
never anything the least like this, which made me 
early suppose the liquor had been tampered with. 
It was a long while before these yells and howls 
died out into a sort of miserable moaning, and then 
to silence; and it seemed a long while after that, 
before Ballantrae came down again, this time with 
Teach upon his heels. The latter cursed at the 
sight of us three upon the lockers. 


OF BALLANTRAE 67 

“ Tut,” says Ballantrae, “ you might fire a pistol 
at their ears. You know what stuff they have 
been swallowing.” 

There was a hatch in the cabin floor, and under 
that the richest part of the booty was stored against 
the day of division. It fastened with a ring and 
three padlocks, the keys (for greater security) 
being divided ; one to Teach, one to Ballantrae, and 
one to the mate, a man called Hammond. Yet I 
was amazed to see they were now all in the one 
hand; and yet more amazed (still looking through 
my fingers) to observe Ballantrae and Teach bring 
up several packets, four of them in all, very care- 
fully made up and with a loop for carriage. 

“ And now,” says Teach, “ let us be going.” 

“ One word,” says Ballantrae, “ I have discov- 
ered there is another man besides yourself who 
knows a private path across the swamp. And it 
seems it is shorter than yours.” 

Teach cried out, in that case, they were undone. 

“ I do not know for that,” says Ballantrae. 
“For there are several other circumstances with 
which I must acquaint you. First of all, there is 
no bullet in your pistols which (if you remember) 
I was kind enough to load for both of us this 
morning. Secondly, as there is some one else who 
knows a passage, you must think it highly im- 
probable I should saddle myself with a lunatic like 


68 


THE MASTER 


you. Thirdly, these gentlemen (who need no 
longer pretend to be asleep) are those of my party, 
and will now proceed to gag and bind you to the 
mast; and when your men awaken (if they ever do 
awake after the drugs we have mingled in their 
liquor) I am sure they will be so obliging as to 
deliver you, and you will have no difficulty, I dare 
say, to explain the business of the keys.” 

Not a word said Teach, but looked at us like 
a frightened baby, as we gagged and bound him. 

“Now you see, you moon-calf,” says Ballan- 
trae, “why we made four packets. Heretofore you 
have been called Captain Teach, but I think you 
are now rather Captain Learn.” 

That was our last word on board the Sarah , we 
four with our four packets lowered ourselves softly 
into a skiff, and left that ship behind us as silent as 
the grave, only for the moaning of some of the 
drunkards. There was a fog about breast-high on 
the waters; so that Dutton, who knew the passage, 
must stand on his feet to direct our rowing; and 
this, as it forced us to row gently, was the means 
of our deliverance. We were yet but a little way 
from the ship, when it began to come grey, and 
the birds to fly abroad upon the water. All of a 
sudden, Dutton clapped down upon his hams, and 
whispered us to be silent for our lives, and hearken. 
Sure enough, we heard a little faint creak of oars 


OF BALLANTRAE 69 

upon one hand, and then again, and further off, 
a creak of oars upon the other. It was clear, we 
had been sighted yesterday in the morning; here 
were the cruiser's boats to cut us out; here were 
we defenceless in their very midst. Sure, never 
were poor souls more perilously placed; and as 
we lay there on our oars, praying God the mist 
might hold, the sweat poured from my brow. 
Presently we heard one of the boats, where we 
might have thrown a biscuit in her. “Softly, 
men,” we heard an officer whisper; and I marvelled 
they could not hear the drumming of my heart. 

“Never mind the path,” says Ballantrae, “we 
must get shelter anyhow; let us pull straight ahead 
for the sides of the basin.” 

This we did with the most anxious precaution, 
rowing, as best we could, upon our hands, and 
; steering at a venture in the fog which was (for 
all that) our only safety. But heaven guided us; 
we touched ground at a thicket; scrambled ashore 
with our treasure; and having no other way of 
concealment, and the mist beginning already to 
lighten, hove down the skiff and let her sink. We 
were still but new under cover when the sun rose; 
and at the same time, from the midst of the basin, 
a great shouting of seamen sprang up, and we knew 
the Sarah was being boarded. I heard afterwards 
the officer that took her got great honour; and 


7 o 


THE MASTER 


it ’s true the approach was creditably managed, but 
I think he had an easy capture when he came to 
board . 1 

I was still blessing the saints for my escape; 
when I became aware we were in trouble of another 
kind. We were here landed at random in a vast 
and dangerous swamp; and how to come at the 
path was a concern of doubt, fatigue and peril. 
Dutton, indeed, was of opinion we should wait 
until the ship was gone, and fish up the skiff ; for 
any delay would be more wise than to go blindly 
ahead in that morass. One went back accordingly 
to the basin-side and (peering through the thicket) 
saw the fog already quite drunk up and English 
colours flying on the Sarah, but no movement made 
to get her under way. Our situation was now very 
doubtful. The swamp was an unhealthful place 
to linger in; we had been so greedy to bring 
treasures that we had brought but little food; it 
was highly desirable, besides, that we should get 
clear of the neighbourhood and into the settlements, 
before the news of the capture went abroad; and 
against all these considerations, there was only the 

1 Note by Mr. Mackellar. This Teach of the Sarah must not be 
confused with the celebrated Blackbeard. The dates and facts by 
no means tally. It is possible the second Teach may have at once 
borrowed the name and imitated the more excessive part of his 
manners from the first. Even the Master of Ballantrae could make 
admirers. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


7i 

peril of the passage on the other side. I think it 
not wonderful we decided on the active part. 

It was already blistering hot, when we set forth 
to pass the marsh, or rather to strike the path, by 
compass. Dutton took the compass, and one or 
other of us three carried his proportion of the 
treasure; I promise you he kept a sharp eye to 
his rear, for it was like the man’s soul that he must 
trust us with. The thicket was as close as a bush ; 
the ground very treacherous, so that we often sank 
in the most terrifying manner, and must go round 
about ; the heat, besides, was stifling, the air singu- 
larly heavy, and the stinging insects abounded in 
such myriads that each of us walked under his 
own cloud. It has often been commented on, how 
much better gentlemen of birth endure fatigue than 
persons of the rabble ; so that walking officers, who 
must tramp in the dirt beside their men, shame 
them by their constancy. This was well to be 
observed in the present instance; for here were 
Ballantrae and I, two gentlemen of the highest 
breeding, on the one hand ; and on the other, Grady, 
a common mariner, and a man nearly a giant in 
physical strength. The case of Dutton is not in 
point, for I confess he did as well as any of us . 1 

1 Note by Mr. Mackellar. And is not this the whole explanation ? 
since this Dutton, exactly like the officers, enjoyed the stimulus of 
some responsibility. 


72 


THE MASTER 


But as for Grady he began early to lament his case, 
tailed in the rear, refused to carry Dutton’s packet 
when it came his turn, clamoured continually for 
rum (of which we had too little) and at last even 
threatened us from behind with a cocked pistol, 
unless we should allow him rest. Ballantrae would 
have fought it out, I believe ; but I prevailed with 
him the other way ; and we made a stop and ate a 
meal. It seemed to benefit Grady little ; he was in 
the rear again at once, growling and bemoaning 
his lot; and at last, by some carelessness, not hav- 
ing followed properly in our tracks, stumbled into 
a deep part of the slough where it was mostly 
water, gave some very dreadful screams, and before 
we could come to his aid, had sunk along with his 
booty. His fate and above all these screams of his 
appalled us to the soul; yet it was on the whole a 
fortunate circumstance and the means of our de- 
liverance. For it moved Dutton to mount into, a 
tree, whence he was able to perceive and to show 
me, who had climbed after him, a high piece 
of the wood which was a landmark for the path. 
He went forward the more carelessly, I must 
suppose; for presently we saw him sink a little 
down, draw up his feet and sink again, and so 
twice. Then he turned his face to us, pretty 
white. 

“ Lend a hand,” said he, “ I am in a bad place.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


73 

“ I don’t know about that,” says Ballantrae, 
standing still. 

Dutton broke out into the most violent oaths, 
sinking a little lower as he did, so that the mud 
was nearly to his waist; and plucking a pistol 
from his belt, “ Help me,” he cries, “ or die and 
be damned to you ! ” 

“ Nay,” says Ballantrae, “ I did but jest. I 
am coming.” And he set down his own packet and 
Dutton’s, which he was then carrying. “ Do not 
venture near till we see if you are needed,” said he 
to me, and went forward alone to where the man 
was bogged. He was quiet now, though he still 
held the pistol; and the marks of terror in his 
countenance were very moving to behold. 

“ For the Lord’s sake,” says he, “ look sharp.” 

Ballantrae was now got close up. “ Keep still,” 
says he and seemed to consider ; and then “ Reach 
out both your hands ! ” 

Dutton laid down his pistol, and so watery was 
the top surface, that it went clear out of sight; 
with an oath, he stooped to snatch it; and as he 
did so, Ballantrae leaned forth and stabbed him 
between the shoulders. Up went his hands over 
his head, I know not whether with the pain or to 
ward himself; and the next moment he doubled 
forward in the mud. 

Ballantrae was already over the ankles, but he 


THE MASTER 


74 

plucked himself out and came back to me, where ' 
I stood with my knees smiting one another. “ The 
devil take you, Francis! ” says he. “ I believe you 
are a half-hearted fellow after all. I have only done 
justice on a pirate. And here we are quite clear 
of the Sarah! Who shall now say that we have 
dipped our hands in any irregularities ? ” 

I assured him he did me injustice; but my sense 
of humanity was so much affected by the horrid- 
ness of the fact that I could scarce find breath to 
answer with. 

“ Come,”. said he, “you must be more resolved. 
The need for this fellow ceased when he had 
shown you where the path ran; and you cannot 
deny I would have been daft to let slip so fair 
an opportunity.” 

I could not deny but he was right in prin- 
ciple; nor yet could I refrain from shedding tears, 
of which I think no man of valour need have been 
ashamed ; and it was not until I had a share of the 
rum that I was able to proceed. I repeat I am far 
from ashamed of my generous emotion; mercy is 
honourable in the warrior; and yet I cannot alto- 
gether censure Ballantrae, whose step was really 
fortunate, as we struck the path without further 
misadventure, and the same night, about sundown, 
came to the edge of the morass. 

We were too weary to seek far; on some dry 


O F B ALLANTRAE 


75 

sands still warm with the day’s sun, and close 
under a wood of pines, we lay down and were in- 
stantly plunged in sleep. 

We awaked the next morning very early, and 
began with a sullen spirit a conversation that came 
near to end in blows. We were now cast on shore 
in the southern provinces, thousands of miles from 
any French settlement; a dreadful journey and a 
thousand perils lay in front of us ; and sure, if there 
was ever need for amity, it was in such an hour. 
I must suppose that Ballantrae had suffered in his 
sense of what is truly polite; indeed, and there is 
nothing strange in the idea, after the sea-wolves 
we had consorted with so long; and as for myself 
he fubbed me off unhandsomely, and any gentle- 
man would have resented his behaviour. 

I told him in what light I saw his conduct; he 
walked a little off, I following to upbraid him ; and 
at last he stopped me with his hand. 

“ Frank,” says he, “you know what we swore; 
and yet there is no oath invented would induce me 
to swallow such expressions, if I did not regard 
you with sincere affection. It is impossible you 
should doubt me there : I have given proofs. 
Dutton I had to take, because he knew the pass, and 
Grady because Dutton would not move without 
him; but what call was there to carry you along? 
You are a perpetual danger to me with your cursed 


THE MASTER 


76 

Irish tongue. By rights you should now be in 
irons in the cruiser. And you quarrel with me like 
a baby for some trinkets ! ” x 

I considered this one of the most unhandsome 
speeches ever made; and indeed to this day I can 
scarce reconcile it to my notion of a gentleman that 
was my friend. I retorted upon him with his 
Scotch accent, of which he had not so much as 
some, but enough to be very barbarous and dis- 
gusting, as I told him plainly ; and the affair would 
have gone to a great length, but for an alarming 
intervention. 

We had got some way off upon the sand. The 
place where we had slept, with the packets lying 
undone and the money scattered openly, was now 
between us and the pines; and it was out of these 
the stranger must have come. There he was at 
least, a great hulking fellow of the country, with 
a broad axe on his shoulder, looking open-mouthed, 
now at the treasure which was just at his feet, and 
now at our disputation in which we had gone far 
enough to have weapons in our hands. We had no 
sooner observed him than he found his legs and 
made off again among the pines. 

This was no scene to put our minds at rest: a 
couple of armed men in sea-clothes found quar- 
relling over a treasure, not many miles from where 
a pirate had been captured — here was enough to 


OF BALLANTRAE 


77 

bring the whole country about our ears. The 
quarrel was not even made up ; it was blotted from 
our minds ; and we got our packets together in the 
twinkling of an eye and made off running with the 
'best will in the world. But the trouble was, we 
did not know in what direction, and must continu- 
ally return upon our steps. Ballantrae had indeed 
collected what he could from Dutton ; but it ’s hard 
to travel upon hearsay; and the estuary, which 
spreads into a vast irregular harbour, turned us 
off upon every side with a new stretch of water. 

We were near beside ourselves and already quite 
spent with running, when coming to the top of 
a dune, we saw we were again cut off by another 
ramification of the bay. This was a creek, how- 
ever, very different from those that had arrested 
us before; being set in rocks, and so precipitously 
deep, that a small vessel was able to lie alongside, 
made fast with a hawser; and her crew had laid 
a plank to the shore. Here they had lighted a fire 
and were sitting at their meal. As for the ves- 
sel herself, she was one of those they build in the 
Bermudas. 

The love of gold and the great hatred that every- 
body has to pirates were motives of the most in- 
fluential, and would certainly raise the country in 
our pursuit. Besides it was now plain we were 
on some sort of straggling peninsula like the 


THE MASTER 


?8 

fingers of a hand ; and the wrist, or passage to the 
mainland, which we should have taken at the first, 
was by this time not improbably secured. These 
considerations put us on a bolder counsel. For 
as long as we dared, looking every moment to hear 
sounds of the chase, we lay among some bushes on 
the top of the dune; and having by this means 
secured a little breath and recomposed our appear- 
ance, we strolled down at last, with a great affecta- 
tion of carelessness, to the party by the fire. 

It was a trader and his negroes, belonging to 
Albany in the Province of New York, and now on 
the way home from the Indies with a cargo; his 
name I cannot recall. We were amazed to learn he 
had put in here from terror of the Sarah; for we 
had no thought our exploits had been so notorious. 
As soon as the Albanian heard she had been taken 
the day before, he jumped to his feet, gave us a 
cup of spirits for our good news, and sent his 
negroes to get sail on the Bermudan. On our side, 
we profited by the dram to become more confiden- 
tial, and at last offered ourselves as passengers. He 
looked askance at our tarry clothes and pistols, and 
replied civilly enough that he had scarce accommo- 
dation for himself ; nor could either our prayers or 
our offers of money, in which we advanced pretty 
far, avail to shake him. 

“ I see you think ill of us,” says Ballantrae, “ but 


OF BALLANTRAE 


79 

I will show you how well we think of you by tell- 
ing you the truth. We are Jacobite fugitives, and 
there is a price upon our heads.” 

At this, the Albanian was plainly moved a little. 
He asked us many questions as to the Scotch war, 
which Ballantrae very patiently answered. And 
then, with a wink, in a vulgar manner, “ I guess 
you and your Prince Charlie got more than you 
cared about,” said he. 

“ Bedad, and that we did,” said I. “ And, my 
dear man, I wish you would set a new example 
and give us just that much.” 

This I said in the Irish way, about which there 
is allowed to be something very engaging. It ’s a 
remarkable thing, and a testimony to the love with 
which our nation is regarded, that this address 
scarce ever fails in a handsome fellow. I cannot 
tell how often I have seen a private soldier escape 
the horse, or a beggar wheedle out a good alms, 
by a touch of the brogue. And, indeed, as soon as 
the Albanian had laughed at me I was pretty much 
at rest. Even then, however, he made many con- 
ditions and (for one thing) took away our arms, 
before he suffered us aboard ; which was the signal 
to cast off ; so that in a moment after, we were 
gliding down the bay with a good breeze and bless- 
ing the name of God for our deliverance. Almost 
in the mouth of the estuary, we passed the cruiser, 


8o 


THE MASTER 


and a little after, the poor Sarah with her prize 
crew; and these were both sights to make us ; 
tremble. The Bermudan seemed a very safe place 
to be in, and our bold stroke to have been fortu- 
nately played, when we were thus reminded of the 
case of our companions. For all that, we had only 
exchanged traps, jumped out of the frying pan 
into the fire, run from the yard-arm to the block, 
and escaped the open hostility of the man of war 
to lie at the mercy of the doubtful faith of our 
Albanian merchant. 

From many circumstances, it chanced we were 
safer than we could have dared to hope. The 
town of Albany was at that time much concerned 
in contraband trade across the desert with the 
Indians and the French. This, as it was highly 
illegal, relaxed their loyalty, and as it brought them 
in relation with the politest people on the earth, 
divided even their sympathies. In short they were 
like all the smugglers in the world, spies and agents 
ready-made for either party. Our Albanian be- 
sides was a very honest man indeed, and very 
greedy ; and to crown our luck, he conceived a great 
delight in our society. Before we had reached the 
town of New York, we had come to a full agree- 
ment: that he should carry us as far as Albany 
upon his ship, and thence put us on a way to pass 
the boundaries and join the French. For all this 


OF BALLANTRAE 81 

we were to pay at a high rate ; but beggars cannot 
be choosers, nor outlaws bargainers. 

We sailed, then, up the Hudson River, which, I 
protest, is a very fine stream, and put up at the 
King's Arms in Albany. The town was full of the 
militia of the province, breathing slaughter against 
; the French. Governor Clinton was there himself, 
a very busy man, and by what I could learn, very 
near distracted by the factiousness of his Assembly. 
The Indians on both sides were on the war path; 
we saw parties of them bringing in prisoners and 
(what was much worse) scalps, both male and 
female, for which they were paid at a fixed rate; 
and I assure you the sight was not encouraging. 
Altogether we could scarce have come at a period 
more unsuitable for our designs; our position in 
the chief inn was dreadfully conspicuous : our Alba- 
nian fubbed us off with a thousand delays and 
seemed upon the point of a retreat from his en- 
gagements; nothing but peril appeared to environ 
the poor fugitives ; and for some time, we drowned 
our concern in a very irregular course of living. 

This too proved to be fortunate ; and it ’s one of 
the remarks that fall to be made upon our escape, 
how providentially our steps were conducted to 
the very end. What a humiliation to the dignity 
of man ! My philosophy, the extraordinary genius 
of Ballantrae, our valour, in which I grant that we 


82 


THE MASTER 


were equal — all these might have proved insuffi- 
cient without the Divine Blessing on our efforts. 
And how true it is, as the Church tells us, that the 
Truths of Religion are after all quite applicable 
even to daily affairs ! At least it was in the course 
of our revelry that we made the acquaintance of a 
spirited youth, by the name of Chew. He was one 
of the most daring of the Indian traders, very well 
acquainted with the secret paths of the wilderness, 
needy, dissolute, and my a last good fortune, in 
some disgrace with his family. Him we persuaded 
to come to our relief; he privately provided what 
was needful 'for our flight; and one day we slipped 
out of Albany, without a word to our former 
friend, and embarked, a little above, in a canoe. 

To the toils and perils of this journey, it would 
require a pen more elegant than mine to do full 
justice. The reader must conceive for himself the 
dreadful wilderness which we had now to thread; 
its thickets, swamps, precipitous rocks, impetuous 
rivers, and amazing waterfalls. Among these bar- 
barous scenes, we must toil all day, now paddling, 
now carrying our canoe upon our shoulders; and 
at night we slept about a fire, surrounded by the 
howling of wolves and other savage animals. It 
was our design to mount the head-waters of the 
Hudson, to the neighbourhood of Crown Point; 
where the French had a strong place in the woods. 


OF BALLANTRAE 83 

upon Lake Champlain. But to have done this di- 
rectly were too perilous ; and it was accordingly 
gone upon by such a labyrinth of rivers, lakes and 
portages as makes my head giddy to remember. 
These paths were in ordinary times entirely desert ; 
but the country was now up, the tribes on the war 
path, the woods full of Indian scouts. Again and 
again we came upon these parties, when we least 
expected them; and one day, in particular, I shall 
never forget; how, as dawn was coming in, we 
were suddenly surrounded by five or six of these 
painted devils, uttering a very dreary sort of cry 
and brandishing their hatchets. It passed off 
harmlessly indeed, as did the rest of our encounters ; 
for Chew was well known and highly valued among 
the different tribes. Indeed he was a very gallant, 
respectable young man. But even with the ad- 
vantage of his companionship, you must not think 
these meetings were without sensible peril. To 
prove friendship on our part, it was needful to 
draw upon our stock of rum — indeed, under what- 
ever disguise, that is the true business of the Indian 
trader, to keep a travelling public house in the 
forest; and when once the braves had got their 
bottle of scaur a (as they call this beastly liquor) 
it behooved us to set forth and paddle for our scalps. 
Once they were a little drunk, good-bye to any 
sense or decency; they had but the one thought, 


THE MASTER 


84 

to get more scaur a; they might easily take it in] 
their heads to give us chase ; and had we been over- 
taken, I had never written these memoirs. 

We were come to the most critical portion of 
our course, where we might equally expect to fall 
into the hands of French or English, when a terrible 
calamity befell us. Chew was taken suddenly sick 
with symptoms like those of poison, and in the 
course of a few hours expired in the bottom of 
the canoe. We thus lost at once our guide, our 
interpreter, our boatman and our passport, for he 
was all these in one ; and found ourselves reduced, 
at a blow, to the most desperate and irremediable 
distress. Chew, who took a great pride in his 
knowledge, had indeed often lectured us on the 
geography ; and Ballantrae, I believe, would listen. 
But for my part I have always found such infor- 
mation highly tedious; and beyond the fact that 
we were now in the country of the Adirondack 
Indians, and not so distant from our destination, 
could we but have found our way, I was entirely 
ignorant. The wisdom of my course was soon 
the more apparent; for with all his pains, Bal- 
lantrae was no further advanced than myself. He 
knew we must continue to go up one stream ; then, 
by way of a portage, down another; and then up 
a third. But you are to consider, in a mountain 
country, how many streams come rolling in from 


OF BALLANTRAE 85 

every hand. And how is a gentleman, who is a 
perfect stranger in that part of the world, to tell 
any one of them from any other? Nor was this 
our only trouble. We were great novices, besides, 
in handling a canoe; the portages were almost 
beyond our strength, so that I have seen us sit 
down in despair for half an hour at a time without 
one word ; and the appearance of a single Indian, 
since we had now no means of speaking to them, 
would have been in all probability the means of 
our destruction. There is altogether some excuse 
if Ballantrae showed something of a gloomy dis- 
position; his habit of imputing blame to others, 
quite as capable as himself, was less tolerable, and 
his language it was not always easy to accept. 
Indeed he had contracted on board the pirate ship 
a manner of address which was in a high degree 
unusual between gentlemen; and now, when you 
might say he was in a fever, it increased upon him 
hugely. 

The third day of these wanderings, as we were 
carrying the canoe upon a rocky portage, she fell 
and was entirely bilged. The portage was between 
two lakes, both pretty extensive ; the track, such 
as it was, opened at both ends upon the water, 
and on both hands was enclosed by the unbroken 
woods; and the sides of the lakes were quite im- 
passable with bog; so that we beheld ourselves 


86 


THE MASTER 


not only condemned to go without our boat and 
the greater part of our provisions, but to plunge 
at once into impenetrable thickets and to desert 
what little guidance we still had, — the course of 
the river. Each stuck his pistols in his belt, 
shouldered an axe, made a pack of his treasure 
and as much food as he could stagger under; 
and deserting the rest of our possessions, even to 
our swords, which would have much embarrassed 
us among the woods, we set forth on this deplo- 
rable adventure. The labours of Hercules, so finely 
described by Homer, were a trifle to what we now 
underwent. Some parts of the forest were per- 
fectly dense down to the ground, so that we must 
cut our way like mites in a cheese. In some the 
bottom was full of deep swamp, and the whole 
wood entirely rotten. I have leaped on a great 
fallen log and sunk to the knees in touchwood; 
I have sought to stay myself, in falling, against 
what looked to be a solid trunk, and the whole 
thing has whiffed away at my touch like a sheet 
of paper. Stumbling, falling, bogging to the knees, 
hewing our way, our eyes almost put out with 
twigs and branches, our clothes plucked from our 
bodies, we laboured all day, and it is doubtful if 
we made two miles. What was worse, as we could 
rarely get a view of the country and were per- 
petually justled from our path by obstacles, it was 


OF BALLANTRAE 87 

impossible even to have a guess in what direction 
we were moving. 

A little before sundown, in an open place with 
fa stream and set about with barbarous mountains, 
Ballantrae threw down his pack. “ I will go no 
further/’ said he, and bade me light the fire, damn- 
ing my blood in terms not proper for a chairman. 

I told him to try to forget he had ever been a 
pirate, and to remember he had been a gentleman. 

“Are you mad?” he cried. “Don’t cross me 
here ! ” And then, shaking his fist at the hills, 
“To think,” cries he, “ that I must leave my bones 
in this miserable wilderness! Would God I had 
died upon the scaffold like a gentleman ! ” This 
he said ranting like an actor; and then sat biting 
his fingers and staring on the ground, a most un- 
christian object. 

I took a certain horror of the man, for I thought 
a soldier and a gentleman should confront his end 
with more philosophy. I made him no reply, there- 
fore, in words; and presently the evening fell so 
chill that I was glad, for my own sake, to kindle 
a fire. And yet God knows', in such an open spot, 
and the country alive with savages, the act was 
little short of lunacy. Ballantrae seemed never to 
observe me; but at last, as I was about parching 
a little corn, he looked up. 

“ Have you ever a brother? ” said he. 


88 


THE MASTER 


“ By the blessing of heaven/’ said I, “ not less 
than five.” 

“ I have the one,” said he, with a strange voice ; 
and then presently, “ He shall pay me for all this,” 
he added. And when I asked him what was his 
brother’s part in our distress, “ What ! ” he cried, 
“ he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts 
my wife; and I am here alone with a damned 
Irishman in this tooth-chattering desert! O, I 
have been a common gull ! ” he cried. 

The explosion was in all ways so foreign to my 
friend’s nature, that I was daunted out of all my 
just susceptibility. Sure, an offensive expression, 
however vivacious, appears a wonderfully small 
affair in circumstances so extreme ! But here there 
is a strange thing to be noted. He had only once 
before referred to the lady with whom he was 
contracted. That was when we came in view of 
the town of New York, when he had told me, if 
all had their rights, he was now in sight of his 
own property, for Miss Graeme enjoyed a large 
estate in the province. And this was certainly a 
natural occasion; but now here she was named a 
second time ; and what is surely fit to be observed, 
in this very month, which was November, ’47, and 
/ believe upon that very day as we sat among 
these barbarous mountains , his brother and Miss 
Graeme were married. I am the least superstitious 


OF BALLANTRAE 89 

of men ; but the hand of Providence is here dis- 
played too openly not to be remarked . 1 

The next day, and the next, were passed in 
similar labours ; Ballantrae often deciding on our 
course by the spinning of a coin ; and once, when 
I expostulated on this childishness, he had an odd 
remark that I have never forgotten. “ I know no 
better way,” said he, “ to express my scorn of 
human reason.” I think it was the third day, that 
we found the body of a Christian, scalped and 
most abominably mangled, and lying in a pudder 
of his blood; the birds of the desert screaming 
over him, as thick as flies. I cannot describe how 
dreadfully this sight affected us ; but it robbed me 
pf all strength and all hope for this world. The 
same day, and only a little after, we were scram- 
bling over a part of the forest that had been 
burned, when Ballantrae, who was a little ahead, 
ducked suddenly behind a fallen trunk. I joined 
him in this shelter, whence we could look abroad 
without being seen ourselves; and in the bottom 
of the next vale, beheld a large war party of the 
savages going by across our line. There might be 
the value of a weak battalion present ; all naked 
to the waist, blacked with grease and soot, and 
painted with white lead and vermilion, according 

1 Note by Mr. Mackellar. A complete blunder: there was at 
this date no word of the marriage : see above in my own narration. 


9 ° 


THE MASTER 


to their beastly habits. They went one behind 
another like a string of geese, and at a quickish 
trot; so that they took but a little while to rattle 
by and disappear again among the woods. Yet 
I suppose we endured a greater agony of hesita- 
tion and suspense in these few minutes than goes 
usually to a man’s whole life. Whether they were 
French or English Indians, whether they desired 
scalps or prisoners, whether we should declare 
ourselves upon the chance or lie quiet and con- 
tinue the heart-breaking business of our journey: 
sure, I think, these were questions to have puz- 
zled the brains of Aristotle himself. Ballantrae 
turned to me with a face all wrinkled up and 
his teeth showing in his mouth, like what I have 
read of people starving; he said no word, but 
his whole appearance was a kind of dreadful 
question. 

“ They may be of the English side,” I whis- 
pered ; “ and think ! the best we could then hope, 
is to begin this over again.” 

“ I know, I know,” he said. “ Yet it must come 
to a plunge at last.” And he suddenly plucked out 
his coin, shook it in his closed hands, looked at it, 
and then lay down with his face in the dust. 

Addition by Mr. Macke liar. I drop the Cheva- 
lier’s narration at this point because the couple 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


9i 

quarrelled and separated the same day; and the 
Chevalier’s account of the quarrel seems to me (I 
must confess) quite incompatible with the nature 
of either of the men. Henceforth, they wandered 
alone, undergoing extraordinary sufferings; until 
first one and then the other was picked up by a 
party from Fort St. Frederick. Only two things 
are to be noted. And first (as most important for 
my purpose) that the Master, in the course of his 
miseries, buried his treasure, at a point never since 
discovered, but of which he took a drawing in 
his own blood on the lining of his hat. And 
second, that on his coming thus penniless to the 
Fort, he was welcomed like a brother by the 
Chevalier, who thence paid his way to France. 
The simplicity of Mr. Burke’s character leads him 
at this point to praise the Master exceedingly; 
to an eye more worldly wise, it would seem 
it was the Chevalier alone that was to be com- 
mended. I have the more pleasure in pointing 
to this really very noble trait of my esteemed 
correspondent, as I fear I may have wounded him 
immediately before. I have refrained from com- 
ments on any of his extraordinary and (in my 
eyes) immoral opinions, for I know him to be 
jealous of respect. But his version of the quar- 
rel is really more than I can reproduce; for 
I knew the Master myself, and a man more 


92 


THE MASTER 


insusceptible of fear is not conceivable. I re- 
gret this oversight of the Chevalier’s, and all 
the more because the tenor of his narrative 
(set aside a few flourishes) strikes me as highly 
ingenuous. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


93 


PERSECUTIONS ENDURED BY 
MR. HENRY 



OU can guess on what part of his adven- 


tures the Colonel principally dwelled. In- 


deed, if we had heard it all, it is to be 
thought the current of this business had been 
wholly altered; but the pirate^ ship was very 
gently touched upon. Nor did I hear the Colonel 
to an end even of that which he was willing to 
disclose; for Mr. Henry, having for some while 
been plunged in a brown study, rose at last from 
his seat and (reminding the Colonel there were 
matters that he must attend to) bade me follow 
him immediately to the office. 

Once there, he sought no longer to dissemble 
his concern, walking to and fro in the room with 
a contorted face, and passing his hand repeatedly 
upon his brow. 

“ We have some business,” he began at last; 
and there broke off, declared we must have wine, 
and sent for a magnum of the best. This was 
extremely foreign to his habitudes; and what was 
still more so, when the wine had come, he gulped 


94 


THE MASTER 


it down one glass upon another like a man care- 
less of appearances. But the drink steadied him. 

“ You will scarce be surprised, Mackellar,” says 
he, “ when I tell you that my brother (whose 
safety we are all rejoiced to learn) stands in some 
need of money.” 

I told him I had misdoubted as much; but the 
time was not very fortunate as the stock was low. 

“ Not mine,” said he. “ There is the money for 
the mortgage.” 

I reminded him it was Mrs. Henry’s. 

“ I will be answerable to my wife,” he cried 
violently. 

“ And then,” said I, “ there is the mortgage.” 

“ I know,” said he, “ it is on that I would con- 
sult you.” 

I showed him how unfortunate a time it was to 
divert this money from its destination; and how 
by so doing we must lose the profit of our past 
economies, and plunge back the estate into the 
mire. I even took the liberty to plead with him; 
and when he still opposed me with a shake of the 
head and a bitter dogged smile, my zeal quite 
carried me beyond my place. “ This is midsum- 
mer madness,” cried I ; “ and I for one will be no 
party to it.” 

“ You speak as though I did it for my pleasure,” 
says he. “ But I have a child now ; and besides 


OF BALLANTRAE 


95 


I love order; and to say the honest truth, Mac- 
kellar, I had begun to take a pride in the estates.” 
He gloomed for a moment. “ But what would 
you have?” he went on. “Nothing is mine, 
nothing. This day’s news has knocked the bottom 
out of my life. I have only the name and the 
shadow of things; only the shadow; there is no 
substance in my rights.” 

“ They will prove substantial enough before a 
court,” said I. 

He looked at me with a burning eye, and seemed 
to repress the word upon his lips ; and I repented 
what I had said, for I saw that while he spoke of 
the estate he had still a side-thought to his mar- 
riage. And then, of a sudden, he twitched the 
letter from his pocket, where it lay all crumpled, 
smoothed it violently on the table, and read these 
words to me with a trembling tongue. “ ‘ My 
dear Jacob ’ — This is how he begins ! ” cries he 
— “ ‘ My dear Jacob, I once called you so, you 
may remember; and you have now done the busi- 
ness, and flung my heels as high as Criffel.’ What 
do you think of that, Mackellar,” says he, “ from 
an only brother? I declare to God I liked him 
very well ; I was always staunch to him ; and this 
is how he writes! But I will not sit down under 
the imputation — ” (walking to and fro) — “lam 
as good as he, I am a better man than he, I 


THE MASTER 


96 

call on God to prove it ! I cannot give him all the 
monstrous sum he asks; he knows the estate to 
be incompetent; but I will give him what I have, 
and it is more than he expects. I have borne all 
this too long. See what he writes further on; 
read it for yourself : ‘ I know you are a niggardly 
dog/ A niggardly dog! I, niggardly? Is that 
true, Mackellar? You think it is?” I really 
thought he would have struck me at that. “ O, 
you all think so! Well, you shall see, and he shall 
see, and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and 
go barefoot, I shall stuff this bloodsucker. Let 
him ask all — all, and he shall have it ! It is all 
his by rights. Ah ! ” he cried, “ and I foresaw 
all this and worse, when he would not let me go.” 
He poured out another glass of wine and was 
about to carry it to his lips, when I made so bold 
as lay a finger on his arm. He stopped a moment. 
“You are right,” said he, and flung glass and all 
in the fireplace. “ Come, let us count the money.” 

I durst no longer oppose him; indeed I was 
very much affected by the sight of so much dis- 
order in a man usually so controlled; and we sat 
down together, counted the money, and made it 
up in packets for the greater ease of Colonel Burke, 
who was to be the bearer. Tnis done, Mr. Henry 
returned to the hall, where he and my old lord 
sat all night through with their guest. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


97 

A little before dawn I was called and set out 
with the Colonel. He would scarce have liked a 
less responsible convoy, for he was a man who 
valued himself ; nor could we afford him one more 
dignified, for Mr. Henry must not appear with the 
freetraders. It was a very bitter morning of wind, 
and as we went down through the long shrubbery,, 
the Colonel held himself muffled in his cloak. 

“ Sir/’ said I, “ this is a great sum of money 
that your friend requires. I must suppose his 
necessities to be very great.” 

“We must suppose so,” says he, I thought drily, 
but perhaps it was the cloak about his mouth. 

“ I am only a servant of the family,” said X. 
“ You may deal openly with me. I think we are 
likely to get little good by him ? ” 

“ My dear man,” said the Colonel, “ Ballantrae 
is a gentleman of the most eminent natural abili- 
ties, and a man that I admire and that I revere, 
to the very ground he treads on.” And then he 
seemed to me to pause like one in a difficulty. 

“ But for all that,” said I, “ we are likely to get 
little good by him ? ” 

“ Sure, and you can have it your own way, my 
dear man,” says the Colonel. 

By this time we had come to the side of the 
creek, where the boat awaited him. “ Well,” said 
he, “I am sure I am very much your debtor for 

7 


THE MASTER 


98 

all your civility, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is ; and 
just as a last word, and since you show so much I 
intelligent interest, I will mention a small circum- 
stance that may be of use to the family. For I 
believe my friend omitted to mention that he has 
the largest pension on the Scots Fund of any ref- 
ugee in Paris; and it ’s the more disgraceful, sir,” 
cries the Colonel, warming, “ because there ’s not 
one dirty penny for myself.” 

He cocked his hat at me, as if I had been to 
blame for this partiality; then changed again into 
his usual swaggering civility, shook me by the 
hand, and set off down to the boat, with the 
money under his arms, and whistling as he went 
the pathetic air of Shule Aroon. It was the first 
time I had heard that tune ; I was to hear it again, 
words and all, as you shall learn; but I remember 
how that little stave of it ran in my head, after 
the freetraders had bade him “ Wheesht, in the 
deil’s name,” and the grating of the oars had taken 
its place, and I stood and watched the dawn creep- 
ing on the sea, and the boat drawing away, and 
the lugger lying with her foresail backed await- 
ing it. 

The gap made in our money was a sore embar- 
rassment; and among other consequences, it had 
this: that I must ride to Edinburgh, and there 


OF BALLANTRAE 


99 


raise a new loan on very questionable terms to 
keep the old afloat; and was thus, for close upon 
three weeks, absent from the house of Durrisdeer. 

What passed in the interval, I had none to tell 
me; but I found Mrs. Henry, upon my return, 
much changed in her demeanour; the old talks 
with my lord for the most part pretermitted ; a 
certain deprecation visible towards her husband, 
to whom I thought she addressed herself more 
often ; and for one thing, she was now greatly 
wrapped up in Miss Katharine. You would think 
the change was agreeable to Mr. Henry! no such 
matter! To the contrary, every circumstance of 
alteration was a stab to him; he read in each the 
avowal of her truant fancies : — that constancy to 
the Master of which she was proud while she sup- 
posed him dead, she had to blush for now she 
knew he was alive: and these blushes were the 
hated spring of her new conduct. I am to con- 
ceal no truth; and I will here say plainly, I think 
this was the period in which Mr. Henry showed 
the worst. He contained himself, indeed, in pub- 
lic; but there was a deep-seated irritation visible 
underneath. With me, from whom he had less 
concealment, he was often grossly unjust; and 
even for his wife, he would sometimes have a 
sharp retort : perhaps when she had ruffled him 
with some unwonted kindness; perhaps upon no 


IOO 


TH E MASTER 


tangible occasion, the mere habitual tenor of the 
man’s annoyance bursting spontaneously forth. 
When he would thus forget himself (a thing so 
strangely out of keeping with the terms of their 
relation), there went a shock through the whole 
company ; and the pair would look upon each other 
in a kind of pained amazement. 

All the time too, while he was injuring himself 
by this defect of temper, he was hurting his posi- 
tion by a silence, of which I scarce know whether 
to say it was the child of generosity or pride. The 
freetraders came again and again, bringing mes- 
sengers from the Master, and none departed empty- 
handed. I never durst reason with Mr. Henry; 
he gave what was asked of him in a kind of noble 
rage. Perhaps because he knew he was by nature 
inclining to the parsimonious, he took a back-fore- 
most pleasure in the recklessness with which he 
supplied his brother’s exigence. Perhaps the falsity 
of the position would have spurred a humbler man 
into the same excesses. But the estate (if I may 
say so) groaned under it; our daily expenses were 
shorn lower and lower; the stables were emptied, 
all but four roadsters; servants were discharged, 
which raised a dreadful murmuring in the country 
and heated up the old disfavour upon Mr. Henry ; 
and at last the yearly visit to Edinburgh must be 
discontinued. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


IOi 


This was in 1756. You are to suppose that for 
seven years this bloodsucker had been drawing the 
life’s blood from Durrisdeer; and that all this 
time, my patron had held his peace. It was an 
effect of devilish malice in the Master, that he 
addressed Mr. Henry alone upon the matter of his 
demands ; and there was never a word to my lord. 
The family had looked on wondering at our econ- 
omies. They had lamented, I have no doubt, that 
my patron had become so great a miser; a fault 
always despicable, but in the young abhorrent ; and 
Mr. Henry was not yet thirty years of age. Still 
he had managed the business of Durrisdeer almost 
from a boy; and they bore with these changes 
in a silence as proud and bitter as his own, until 
the coping stone of the Edinburgh visit. 

At this time, I believe my patron and his wife 
were rarely together save at meals. Immediately 
on the back of Colonel Burke’s announcement, Mrs. 
Henry made palpable advances; you might say 
she had laid a sort of timid court to her husband, 
different indeed from her former manner of un- 
concern and distance. I never had the heart to 
blame Mr. Henry because he recoiled from these 
advances; nor yet to censure the wife, when she 
was cut to the quick by their rejection. But the 
result was an entire estrangement, so that (as I 
say) they rarely spoke except at meals. Even the 


102 


THE MASTER 


matter of the Edinburgh visit was first broached 
at table; and it chanced that Mrs. Henry was 
that day ailing and querulous. She had no sooner 
understood her husband’s meaning, than the red 
flew in her face. 

“ At last,” she cried, “ this is too much ! 
Heaven knows what pleasure I have in my life, 
that I should be denied my only consolation. 
These shameful proclivities must be trod down ; we 
are already a mark and an eyesore in the neigh- 
bourhood ; I will not endure this fresh insanity.” 

“ I cannot afford it,” says Mr. Henry. 

“ Afford ? ” she cried. “ For shame ! But I 
have money of my own.” 

“ That is all mine, madam, by marriage,” he 
snarled, and instantly left the room. 

My old lord threw up his hands to heaven, and 
he and his daughter, withdrawing to the chimney, 
gave me a broad hint to be gone. I found Mr. 
Henry in his usual retreat, the steward’s room, 
perched on the end of the table and plunging his 
penknife in it, with a very ugly countenance. 

“ Mr. Henry,” said I, “ you do yourself too 
much injustice; and it is time this should cease.” 

“ O ! ” cries he, “ nobody minds here. They 
think it only natural. I have shameful proclivi- 
ties. I am a niggardly dog,” and he drove his 
knife up to the hilt. “ But I will show that fel- 


OF BA LLANTR AE 


103 

low,” he cried with an oath, “ I will show him 
which is the more generous.” 

“ This is no generosity,” said I, “ this is only 
pride.” 

“ Do you think I want morality ? ” he asked. 

I thought he wanted help, and I should give it 
him, willy-nilly; and no sooner was Mrs. Henry 
gone to her room, than I presented myself at her 
door and sought admittance. 

She openly showed her wonder. “ What do you 
want with me, Mr. Mackellar ? ” said she. 

“ The Lord knows, madam,” says I, “ I have 
never troubled you before with any freedoms ; but 
this thing lies too hard upon my conscience, and 
it will out. Is it possible that two people can be 
so blind as you and my lord? and have lived all 
these years with a noble gentleman like Mr. Henry, 
and understand so little of his nature ? ” 

“ What does this mean ? ” she cried. 

“ Do you not know where his money goes to ? 
his — and yours — and the money for the very 
wine he does not drink at table?” I went on. 
“To Paris — to that man ! Eight thousand pounds 
has he had of us in seven years, and my patron 
fool enough to keep it secret ! ” 

“ Eight thousand pounds ! ” she repeated. “ It 
is impossible, the estate is not sufficient.” 

“ God knows how we have sweated farthings 


104 


THE MASTER 


to produce it,” said I. “ But eight thousand and 
sixty is the sum, beside odd shillings. And if 
you can think my patron miserly after that, this 
shall be my last interference.” 

“ You need say no more, Mr. Mackellar,” said 
she. “ You have done most properly in what you 
too modestly call your interference. I am much 
to blame ; you must think me indeed a very 
unobservant wife” — (looking upon me with a 
strange smile) — “ but I shall put this right at 
once. The Master was always of a very thought- 
less nature; but his heart is excellent; he is the 
soul of generosity. I shall write to him myself. 
You cannot think how you have pained me by 
this communication.” 

“ Indeed, madam, I had hoped to have pleased 
you,” said I, for I raged to see her still thinking 
of the Master. 

“ And pleased,” said she, “ and pleased me of 
course.” 

That same day (I will not say but what I 
watched) I had the satisfaction to see Mr. Henry 
come from his wife’s room in a state most un- 
like himself; for his face was all bloated with 
weeping, and yet he seemed to me to walk upon 
the air. By this, I was sure his wife had made 
him full amends for once; “Ah,” thought I, to 
myself, “ I have done a brave stroke this day.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 




IO S 


On the morrow, as I was seated at my books, 
Mr. Henry came in softly behind me, took me by 
the shoulders and shook me in a manner of play- 
fulness. “ I find you are a faithless fellow after 
all,” says he; which was his only reference to my 
part, but the tone he spoke in was more to me 
than any eloquence of protestation. Nor was this 
all I had effected; for when the next messenger 
came (as he did not long afterwards) from the 
Master, he got nothing away with him but a letter. 
For some while back, it had been I myself who 
had conducted these affairs; Mr. Henry not set- 
ting pen to paper, and I only in the dryest and 
most formal terms. But this letter I did not even 
see; it would scarce be pleasant reading, for Mr. 
Henry felt he had his wife behind him for once, 
and I observed, on the day it was despatched, he 
had a very gratified expression. 

Things went better now in the family, though 
it could scarce be pretended they went well. There 
was now at least no misconception; there was 
kindness upon all sides; and I believe my patron 
and his wife might again have drawn together, 
if he could but have pocketed his pride, and she 
forgot (what was the ground of all) her brood- 
ing on another man. It is wonderful how a pri- 
vate thought leaks out; it is wonderful to me 
now, how we should all have followed the cur- 


IO 6 THE MASTER 

rent of her sentiments; and though she bore her- 
self quietly, and had a very even disposition, yet 
we should have known whenever her fancy ran to 
Paris. And would not any one have thought that 
my disclosure must have rooted up that idol? I 
think there is the devil in women : all these years 
passed, never a sight of the man, little, enough 
kindness to remember (by all accounts) even while 
she had him, the notion of his death intervening, 
his heartless rapacity laid bare to her: that all 
should not do, and she must still keep the best 
place in her heart for this accursed fellow, is a 
thing to make a plain man rage. I had never 
much natural sympathy for the passion of love; 
but this unreason in my patron’s wife disgusted I 
me outright with the whole matter. I remember 
checking a maid, because she sang some bairnly 
kickshaw while my mind was thus engaged; and 
my asperity brought about my ears the enmity of 
all the petticoats about the house ; of which I 
recked very little, but it amused Mr. Henry, who 
rallied me much upon our joint unpopularity. It 
is strange enough (for my own mother was cer- 
tainly one of the salt of the earth and my aunt 
Dickson, who paid my fees at the University, a 
very notable woman), but I have never had much 
toleration for the female sex, possibly not much 
understanding ; and being far from a bold man, ! 


OF BALLANTRAE 


107 

I have ever shunned their company. Not only do 
I see no cause to regret this diffidence in myself, 
but have invariably remarked the most unhappy 
consequences follow those who were less wise. So 
much I thought proper to set down, lest I show 
myself unjust to Mrs. Henry. And besides the 
remark arose naturally, on a reperusal of the letter 
which was the next step in these affairs, and 
reached me to my sincere astonishment by a pri- 
vate hand, some week or so after the departure 
of the last messenger. 

Letter from Colonel Burke ( afterwards Chevalier) 
to Mr. Macke liar. 

Troyes in Champagne, ) 
July 12, 1756. J 

My Dear Sir: — You will doubtless be surprised to re- 
ceive a communication from one so little known to you ; but 
on the occasion I had the good fortune to rencounter you at 
Durrisdeer, I remarked you for a young man of a solid gravity 
of character : a qualification which I profess I admire and 
revere next to natural genius or the bold chivalrous spirit of 
the soldier. I was besides interested in the noble family 
which you have the honour to serve or (to speak more by the 
book) to be the humble and respected friend of ; and a con- 
versation I had the pleasure to have with you very early in 
the morning has remained much upon my mind. 

Being the other day in Paris, on a visit from this famous 
city where I am in garrison, I took occasion to inquire your 
name (which I profess I had forgot) at my friend, the Master 
of B. ; and a fair opportunity occurring, I write to inform you 
of what ’s new. 

The Master of B. (when we had last some talk of him 


io8 


THE MASTER 


together) was in receipt, as I think I then told you, of a 
highly advantageous pension on the Scots Fund. He next 
received a company, and was soon after advanced to a regi- 
ment of his own. My dear Sir, I do not offer to explain 
this circumstance; any more than why I myself, who have 
rid at the right hand of Princes, should be fubbed off with 
a pair of colours and sent to rot in a hole at the bottom of 
the province. Accustomed as I am to courts, I cannot but feel 
it is no atmosphere for a plain soldier ; and I could never 
hope to advance by similar means, even could I stoop to the 
endeavour. But our friend has a particular aptitude to suc- 
ceed by the means of ladies ; and if all be true that I have 
heard, he enjoyed a remarkable protection. It is like this 
turned against him ; for when I had the honour to shake him 
by the hand, he was but newly released from the Bastille 
where he had been cast on a sealed letter; and though now 
released, has both lost his regiment and his pension. My dear 
Sir, the loyalty of a plain Irishman will ultimately succeed in 
the place of craft ; as I am sure a gentleman of your probity 
will agree. 

Now, Sir, the Master is a man whose genius I admire be- 
yond expression, and besides he is my friend; but I thought 
a little word of this revolution in his fortunes would not come 
amiss, for in my opinion, the man ’s desperate. He spoke 
when I saw him of a trip to India (whither I am myself in 
some hope of accompanying my illustrious countryman, Mr. 
Lally) ; but for this he would require (as I understood) more 
money than was readily at his command. You may have 
heard a military proverb ; that it is a good thing to make a 
bridge of gold to a flying enemy ? I trust you will take my 
meaning ; — and I subscribe myself, with proper respects to 
my Lord Durrisdeer, to his son, and to the beauteous Mrs. 
Durie, 

My dear Sir, 

Your obedient humble servant, 

Francis Burke. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


109 

This missive I carried at once to Mr. Henry; 
and I think there was but the one thought be- 
tween the two of us : that it had come a week 
too late. I made haste to send an answer to 
Colonel Burke, in which I begged him, if he 
should see the Master, to assure him his next 
messenger would be attended to. But with all my 
haste I was not in time to avert what was im- 
pending; the arrow had been drawn, it must now 
fly. I could almost doubt the power of Providence 
(and certainly his will) to stay the issue of events; 
and it is a strange thought, how many of us had 
been storing up the elements of this catastrophe, for 
how long a time, and with how blind an ignorance 
of what we did. 

From the coming of the Colonel’s letter, I had a 
spy-glass in my room, began to drop questions to 
the tenant folk, and as there was no great secrecy 
observed and the freetrade (in our part) went by 
force as much as stealth, I had soon got together 
a knowledge of the signals in use, and knew pretty 
well to an hour when any messenger might be 
expected. I say I questioned the tenants ; for with 
the traders themselves, desperate blades that went 
habitually armed, I could never bring myself to 
meddle willingly. Indeed, by what proved in the 
sequel an unhappy chance, I was an object of 


no 


THE MASTER 


scorn to some of these braggadocios ; who had not 
only gratified me with a nickname, but catching 
me one night upon a by-path and being all (as 
they would have said) somewhat merry, had 
caused me to dance for their diversion. The 
method employed was that of cruelly chipping 
at my toes with naked cutlasses, shouting at the 
same time “ Squaretoes ” ; and though they did 
me no bodily mischief, I was none the less 
deplorably affected and was indeed for several 
days confined to my bed : a scandal on the 
state of Scotland on which no comment is 
required. 

It happened on the afternoon of November 7th, 
in this same unfortunate year, that I espied, during 
my walk, the smoke of a beacon fire upon the Muck- 
leross. It was drawing near time for my return; 
but the uneasiness upon my spirits was that day 
so great, that I must burst through the thickets to 
the edge of what they call the Craig Head. The 
sun was already down, but there was still a broad 
light in the west, which showed me some of the- 
smugglers treading out their signal fire upon the 
Ross, and in the bay the lugger lying with her 
sails brailed up. She was plainly but new come to 
anchor, and yet the skiff was already lowered and 
pulling for the landing place at the end of the 
long shrubbery. And this I knew could signify 


OF BALLANTRAE 


1 1 1 


but one thing, the coming of a messenger for 
Durrisdeer. 

I laid aside the remainder of my terrors, clam- 
bered down the brae — a place I had never ventured 
through before, and was hid among the shore- 
side thickets in time to see the boat touch. Captain 
Crail himself was steering, a thing not usual; by 
his side there sat a passenger; and the men gave 
way with difficulty, being hampered with near upon 
half-a-dozen portmanteaus, great and small. But 
the business of landing was briskly carried through ; 
and presently the baggage was all tumbled on 
shore, the boat on its return voyage to the lugger, 
and the passenger standing alone upon the point 
of rock, a tall slender figure of a gentleman, 
habited in black, with a sword by his side and a 
walking cane upon his wrist. As he so stood, he 
waved the cane to Captain Crail by way of salu- 
tation, with something both of grace and mockery 
that wrote the gesture deeply on my mind. 

No sooner was the boat away with my sworn 
enemies, than I took a sort of. half courage, came 
forth to the margin of the thicket, and there 
halted again, my mind being greatly pulled about 
between natural diffidence and a dark foreboding 
of the truth. Indeed I might have stood there 
swithering all night, had not the stranger turned, 
spied me through the mists, which were beginning 


1 1 2 


THE MASTER 


to fall, and waved and cried on me to draw near. 

I did so with a heart like lead. 

“ Here, my good man/’ said he, in the English 
accent, “ here are some things for Durrisdeer.” 

I was now near enough to see him, a very 
handsome figure and countenance, swarthy, lean, 
long, with a quick, alert, black look, as of one ^ 
who was a fighter and accustomed to command; 
upon one cheek, he had a mole, not unbecoming ; 
a large diamond sparkled on his hand ; his clothes, 
although of the one hue, were of a French and I 
foppish design; his ruffles, which he wore longer 
than common, of exquisite lace ; and I wondered ' 
the more to see him in such a guise, when he was 
but newly landed from a dirty smuggling, lugger. 
At the same time he had a better look at me, toised 
me a second time sharply, and then smiled. 

“ I wager, my friend,” says he, “ that I know 
both your name and your nickname. I divined 
these very clothes upon your hand of writing, Mr. I 
Mackellar.” I 

At these words, I fell to shaking. 

“ O,” says he, “ you need not be afraid of me. 

I bear no malice for your tedious letters ; and it ^ 
is my purpose to employ you a good deal. You 
may call me Mr. Bally: it is the name I have I 
assumed; or rather (since I am addressing so 
great a precision) it is so I have curtailed my 


OF BALLANTRAE 


"3 


own. Come now, pick up that and that ” — in- 
dicating two of the portmanteaus. “ That will be 
as much as you are fit to bear, and the rest can 
very well wait. Come, lose no more time, if you 
please.” 

His tone was so cutting that I managed to do 
as he bid by a sort of instinct, my mind being all 
the time quite lost. No sooner had I picked up 
the portmanteaus, than he turned his back and 
marched off through the long shrubbery; where 
it began already to be dusk, for the wood is thick 
and evergreen. I followed behind, loaded almost 
to the dust, though I profess I was not conscious 
of the burthen; being swallowed up in the mon- 
strosity of this return and my mind flying like a 
weaver’s shuttle. 

On a sudden I set the portmanteaus to the 
ground and halted. He turned and looked back 
at me. 

“Well?” said he. 

“ You are the Master of Ballantrae? ” 

“ You will do me the justice to observe,” says 
he, “ that I have made no secret with the astute 
Mackellar.” 

“ And in the name of God,” cries I, “ what 
brings you here? Go back, while it is yet 
time.” 

“ I thank you,” said he. “ Your master has 


THE MASTER 


114 

chosen this way, and not I ; but since he has made j 
the choice, he (and you also) must abide by the 
result. And now pick up these things of mine, j 
which you have set down in a very boggy place, j 
and attend to that which I have made your I 
business.” 

But I had no thought now of obedience ; I ! 
came straight up to him. “ If nothing will move i 
you to go back,” said I ; “ though sure, under all 
the circumstances, any Christian or even any gen- I 
tleman would scruple to go forward ...” 

“ These are gratifying expressions,” he threw in. ; 

“If nothing will move you to go back,” I con- 
tinued, “ there are still some decencies to be ob- 
served. Wait here with your baggage, and I will 
go forward and prepare your family. Your father 
is an old man ; and . . . ” I stumbled . . . “ there 
are decencies to be observed.” 

“ Truly,” said he, “ this Mackellar improves 
upon acquaintance. But look you here, my man, 
and understand it once for all — you waste your 
breath upon me, and I go my own way with in- 
evitable motion.” 

“Ah!” says I. “Is that so? We shall see 
then ! ” 

And I turned and took to my heels for Durris- 
deer. He clutched at me and cried out angrily, 
and then I believe I heard him laugh, and then I 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


lI 5 

am certain he pursued me for a step or two, and 
(I suppose) desisted. One thing at least is sure, 
that I came but a few minutes later to the door 
of the great house, nearly strangled for the lack 
of breath but quite alone. Straight up the stair 
I ran, and burst into the hall, and stopped before 
the family without the power of speech; but I 
must have carried my story in my looks, for they 
rose out of their places and stared on me like 
changelings. 

“ He has come,” I panted out at last. 

“ He? ” said Mr. Henry. 

“ Himself,” said I. 

“ My son ? ” cried my lord. “ Imprudent, im- 
prudent boy! O, could he not stay where he was 
safe!” 

Never a word said Mrs. Henry; nor did I look 
at her, I scarce knew why. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Henry, with a very deep 
breath, “and where is he?” 

“ I left him in the long shrubbery,” said I. 

“ Take me to him,” said he. 

So we went out together, he and I, without 
another word from any one; and in the midst of 
the gravelled plot, encountered the Master stroll- 
ing up, whistling as he came and beating the air 
with his cane. There was still light enough over- 
head to recognise though not to read a countenance. 


ii 6 THE MASTER 

“Ah, Jacob!” says the Master. “So here is 
Esau back.” 

“ James,” says Mr. Henry, “ for God’s sake, 
call me by my name. I will not pretend that I am 
glad to see you; but I would fain make you as 
welcome as I can in the house of our fathers.” 

“ Or in my house? or yours ? ” says the Master. 
“ Which was you about to say ? But this is an 
old sore, and we need not rub it. If you would 
not share with me in Paris, I hope you will yet 
scarce deny your elder brother a corner of the fire 
at Durrisdeer ? ” 

“ That is very idle speech,” replied Mr. Henry. 
“ And you understand the power of your position 
excellently well.” 

“ Why, I believe I do,” said the other with a 
little laugh. And this, though they had never 
touched hands, was (as we may say) the end of 
the brothers’ meeting; for at this, the Master 
turned to me and bade me fetch his baggage. 

I, on my side, turned to Mr. Henry for a con- 
firmation; perhaps with some defiance. 

“ As long as the Master is here, Mr. Mackellar, 
you will very much oblige me by regarding his 
wishes as you would my own,” says Mr. Henry. 
“We are constantly troubling you : will you be 
so good as send one of the servants?” — with an 
accent on the word. 


OF BALLANTRAE 117 

If this speech were anything at all, it was surely 
a well-deserved reproof upon the stranger; and 
yet, so devilish was his impudence, he twisted it 
the other way. 

“ And shall we be common enough to say 
< Sneck up ’ ? ” inquires he softly, looking upon 
me sideways. 

Had a kingdom depended on the act, I could 
not have trusted myself in words; even to call 
a servant was beyond me; I had rather serve the 
man myself than speak; and I turned away in 
silence and went into the long shrubbery, with a 
heart full of anger and despair. It was dark 
under the trees, and I walked before me and for- 
got what business I was come upon, till I near 
broke my shin on the portmanteaus. Then it 
was that I remarked a strange particular; for 
whereas I had before carried both and scarce 
observed it, it was now as much as I could do 
to manage one. And this, as it forced me to 
make two journeys, kept me the longer from the 
hall. 

When I got there the business of welcome was 
over long ago; the company was already at sup- 
per ; and by an oversight that cut me to the quick, 
my place had been forgotten. I had seen one side 
of the Master’s return; now I was to see the 
other. It was he who first remarked my coming 


1 1 8 THE MASTER 

in and standing back (as I did) in some annoy- 
ance. He jumped from his seat. 

“ And if I have not got the good Mackellar’s 
place!” cries he. “ John, lay another for Mr. 
Bally; I protest he will disturb no one, and your 
table is big enough for all.” 

I could scarce credit my ears ; nor yet my 
senses when he took me by the shoulders and 
thrust me laughing into my own place; such an 
affectionate playfulness was in his voice. And 
while John laid the fresh place for him (a thing 
on which he still insisted) he went and leaned on 
his father’s chair and looked down upon him, and 
the old man turned about and looked upwards on 
his son, with such a pleasant mutual tenderness, 
that I could have carried my hand to my head in 
mere amazement. 

Yet all was of a piece. Never a harsh word 
fell from him, never a sneer showed upon his lip. 
He had laid aside even his cutting English accent, 
and spoke with the kindly Scots tongue, that sets 
a value on affectionate words; and though his 
manners had a graceful elegance mighty foreign 
to our ways in Durrisdeer, it was still a homely 
courtliness, that did not shame but flattered us. 
All that he did throughout the meal, indeed, drink- 
ing wine with me with a notable respect, turning 
about for a pleasant word with John, fondling his 


OF BALLANTRAE 


1 1 9 

father’s hand, breaking into little merry tales of his 
adventures, calling up the past with happy reference 
— all he did was so becoming, and himself so hand- 
some, that I could scarce wonder if my lord and 
Mrs. Henry sat about the board with radiant faces, 
or if John waited behind with dropping tears. 

As soon as supper was over, Mrs. Henry rose 
to withdraw. 

“ This was never your way, Alison/’ said he. 

“ It is my way now,” she replied : which was 
notoriously false, “ and I will give you a good- 
night, James, and a welcome — from the dead,” 
said she, and her voice drooped and trembled. 

Poor Mr. Henry, who had made rather a heavy 
figure through the meal, was more concerned than 
ever : pleased to see his wife withdraw, and yet 
half displeased, as he thought upon the cause of 
it; and the next moment altogether dashed by 
the fervour of her speech. 

On my part, I thought I was now one too many ; 
and was stealing after Mrs. Henry, when the 
Master saw me. 

“ Now, Mr. Mackellar,” says he, “ I take this 
near on an unfriendliness. I cannot have you go : 
this is to make a stranger of the prodigal son — 
and let me remind you where — in his own father’s 
house! Come, sit ye down, and drink another 
glass with Mr. Bally.” 


120 


THE MASTER 


“ Ay, ay, Mr. Mackellar,” says my lord, “ we 
must not make a stranger either of him or you. 
I have been telling my son/’ he added, his voice 
brightening as usual on the word, “ how much 
we valued all your friendly service.” 

So I sat there silent till my usual hour; and 
might have been almost deceived in the man’s 
nature, but for one passage in which his perfidy 
appeared too plain. Here was the passage; of 
which, after what he knows of the brothers’ meet- 
ing, the reader shall consider for himself. Mr. 
Henry sitting somewhat dully, in spite of his best 
endeavours to carry things before my lord, up 
jumps the Master, passes about the board, and 
claps his brother on the shoulder. 

“ Come, come, Hairry lad” says he, with a 
broad accent such as they must have used together 
when they were boys, ‘‘ you must not be down- 
cast because your brother has come home. All ’s 
yours, that ’s sure enough, and little I grudge it 
you. Neither must you grudge me my place be- 
side my father’s fire.” 

“ And that is too true, Henry,” says my old 
lord witfi a little frown, a thing rare with him. 
“ You have been the elder brother of the parable 
in the good sense; you must be careful of the 
other.” 

“ I am easily put in the wrong,” said Mr. Henry. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


121 


“ Who puts you in the wrong? ” cried my lord, 
I thought very tartly for so mild a man. “ You 
have earned my gratitude and your brother’s many 
thousand times ; you may count on its endurance ; 
and let that suffice.” 

“ Ay, Harry, that you may,” said the Master; 
and I thought Mr. Henry looked at him with a 
kind of wildness in his eye. 

On all the miserable business that now followed, 
I have four questions that I asked myself often 
at the time and ask myself still. Was the man 
moved by a particular sentiment against Mr. 
Henry? or by what he thought to be his interest? 
or by a mere delight in cruelty such as cats dis- 
play and theologians tell us of the devil? or by 
what he would have called love? My common 
opinion halts among the three first; but perhaps 
there lay at the spring of his behaviour an element 
of all. As thus : Animosity to Mr. Henry would 
explain his hateful usage of him when they were 
alone; the interests he came to serve would ex- 
plain his very different attitude before my lord; 
that and some spice of a design of gallantry, his 
care to stand well with Mrs. Henry; and the 
pleasure of malice for itself, the pains he was con- 
tinually at to mingle and oppose these lines of 
conduct. 


122 


THE MASTER 


Partly because I was a very open friend to my 
patron, partly because in my letters to Paris I had ! 
often given myself some freedom of remonstrance, 

I was included in his diabolical amusement. When 
I was alone with him, he pursued me with sneers ; 
before the family, he used me with the extreme of 
friendly condescension. This was not only pain- 
ful in itself; not only did it put me continually 
in the wrong; but there was in it an element of 
insult indescribable. That he should thus leave 
me out in his dissimulation, as though even my 
testimony were too despicable to be considered, 
galled me to the blood. But what it was to me 
is not worth notice. I make but memorandum of 
it here; and chiefly for this reason, that it had 
one good result, and gave me the quicker sense of 
Mr. Henry’s martyrdom. 

It was on him the burthen fell. How was he 
to respond to the public advances of one who 
never lost a chance of gibing him in private? 
How was he to smile back on the deceiver and 
the insulter? He was condemned to seem un- 
gracious. He was condemned to silence. Had 
he been less proud, had he spoken, who would 
have credited the truth? The acted calumny had 
done its work ; my lord and Mrs. Henry were the 
daily witnesses of what went on; they could have 
sworn in court that the Master was a model of 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


12 3 

long-suffering good-nature and Mr. Henry a pat- 
tern of jealousy and thanklessness. And ugly 
enough as these must have appeared in any one, 
they seemed tenfold uglier in Mr. Henry; for 
who could forget that the Master lay in peril of 
his life, and that he had already lost his mistress, 
his title and his fortune? 

“ Henry, will you ride with me?” asks the 
Master one day. 

And Mr. Henry, who had been goaded by the 
man all morning, raps out : “ I will not.” 

“ I sometimes wish you would be kinder, 
Henry,” says the other wistfully. 

I give this for a specimen; but such scenes be- 
fell continually. Small wonder if Mr. Henry was 
blamed; small wonder if I fretted myself into 
something near upon a bilious fever; nay, and at 
the mere recollection feel a bitterness in my blood. 

Sure, never in this world was a more diabolical 
contrivance: so perfidious, so simple, so impos- 
sible to combat. And yet I think again, and I 
think always, Mrs. Henry might have read be- 
tween the lines; she might have had more know- 
ledge of her husband’s nature ; after all these years 
of marriage, she might have commanded or cap- 
tured his confidence. And my old lord too, that 
very watchful gentleman, where was all his ob- 
servation? But for one thing, the deceit was 


124 


THE MASTER 


practised by a master hand, and might have gulled 
an angel. For another (in the case of Mrs. 
Henry), I have observed there are no persons so 
far away as those who are both married and 
estranged, so that they seem out of earshot or to 
have no common tongue. For a third (in the case 
of both of these spectators), they were blinded by 
old, ingrained predilection. And for a fourth, the 
risk the Master was supposed to stand in (sup- 
posed, I say — you will soon hear why) made it 
seem the more ungenerous to criticise; and keep- 
ing them in a perpetual tender solicitude about his 
life, blinded them the more effectually to his faults. 

It was during this time that I perceived most 
clearly the effect of manner, and was led to lament 
most deeply the plainness of my own. Mr. Henry 
had the essence of a gentleman; when he was 
moved, when there was any call of circumstance, 
he could play his part with dignity and spirit; 
but in the day’s commerce (it is idle to deny it) 
he fell short of the ornamental. The Master (on 
the other hand) had never a movement but it com- 
mended him. So it befell, that when the one 
appeared gracious and the other ungracious, every 
trick of their bodies seemed to call out confir- 
mation. Nor that alone: but the more deeply 
Mr. Henry floundered in his brother’s toils, the 
more clownish he grew ; and the more the Master 


OF BALLANTRAE 


I2 5 

enjoyed his spiteful entertainment, the more en- 
gagingly, the more smilingly, he went! So that 
the plot, by its own scope and progress, furthered 
and confirmed itself. 

It was one of the man’s arts to use the peril in 
which (as I say) he was supposed to stand. He 
spoke of it to those who loved him with a gentle 
pleasantry, which made it the more touching. To 
Mr. Henry, he used it as a cruel weapon of 
offence. I remember his laying his finger on the 
clean lozenge of the painted window, one day when 
we three were alone together in the hall. “ Here 
went your lucky guinea, Jacob,” said he. And 
when Mr. Henry only looked upon him darkly, 
“ O,” he added, “ you need not look such impo- 
tent malice, my good fly. You can be rid of your 
spider when you please. How long, O Lord ? 
When are you to be wrought to the point of a 
denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of 
my interests in this dreary hole. I ever loved 
experiment.” Still Mr. Henry only stared upon 
him with a glooming brow, and a changed colour ; 
and at last the Master broke out in a laugh and 
clapped him on the shoulder, calling him a sulky 
dog. At this my patron leaped back with a ges- 
ture I thought very dangerous; and I must sup- 
pose the Master thought so too ; for he looked the 
least in the world discountenanced, and I do not 


126 THE MASTER 

remember him again to have laid hands on Mr. 
Henry. 

But though he had his peril always on his lips 
in the one way or the other, I thought his conduct 
strangely incautious, and began to fancy the gov- 
ernment (who had set a price upon his head) was 
gone sound asleep. I will not deny I was tempted 
with the wish to denounce him; but two thoughts 
withheld me: one, that if he were thus to end his 
life upon an honourable scaffold, the man would 
be canonised for good in the minds of his father 
and my patron’s wife: the other, that if I was 
anyway mingled in the matter, Mr. Henry him- 
self would scarce escape some glancings of suspi- 
cion. And in the meanwhile our enemy went in 
and out more than I could have thought possible, 
the fact that he was home again was buzzed about 
all the country-side ; and yet he was never stirred. 
Of all these so many and so different persons who 
were acquainted with his presence, none had the 
least greed (as I used to say, in my annoyance) 
or the least loyalty; and the man rode here and 
there — fully more welcome, considering the lees 
of old unpopularity, than Mr. Henry — and con- 
sidering the freetraders, far safer than myself. 

Not but what he had a trouble of his own ; and 
this, as it brought about the gravest consequences, 
I must now relate. The reader will scarce have 


OF BALLANTRAE 


127 


forgotten Jessie Broun ; her way of life was much 
among the smuggling party; Captain Crail himself 
was of her intimates; and she had early word of 
Mr. Bally’s presence at the house. In my opinion 
she had long ceased to care two straws for the 
Master’s person; but it was become her habit to 
connect herself continually with the Master’s name ; 
that was the ground of all her play-acting; and 
so, now when he was back, she thought she owed 
it to herself to grow a haunter of the neighbour- 
hood of Durrisdeer. The Master could scarce go 
abroad but she was there in wait for him; a 
scandalous figure of a woman, not often sober; 
hailing him wildly as “ her bonnie laddie,” quot- 
ing pedlar’s poetry, and as I receive the story, 
even seeking to weep upon his neck. I own I 
rubbed my hands over this persecution; but the 
Master, who laid so much upon others, was him- 
self the least patient of men. There were strange 
scenes enacted in the policies. Some say he took 
his cane to her, and Jessie fell back upon her 
former weapon, stones. It is certain at least that 
he made a motion to Captain Crail to have the 
woman trepanned, and that the Captain refused 
the proposition with uncommon vehemence. And 
the end of the matter was victory for Jessie. 
Money was got together; an interview took place 
in which my proud gentleman must consent to be 


128 


THE MASTER 


kissed and wept upon; and the woman was set 
up in a public of her own, somewhere on Solway 
side (but I forget where) and by the only news 
I ever had of it, extremely ill-frequented. 

This is to look forward. After Jessie had been 
but a little while upon his heels, the Master comes 
to me one day in the steward’s office, and with 
more civility than usual, “ Mackellar,” says he, 
“ there is a damned crazy wench comes about 
here. I cannot well move in the matter myself, 
which brings me to you. Be so good as see to 
it: the men must have a strict injunction to drive 
the wench away.” 

“ Sir,” said I, trembling a little, “ you can do 
your own dirty errands for yourself.” 

He said not a word to that, and left the room. 

Presently came Mr. Henry. “ Here is news ! ” 
cried he. “ It seems all is not enough, and you 
must add to my wretchedness. It seems you have 
insulted Mr. Bally.” 

“ Under your kind favour, Mr. Henry,” said I, 
“ it was he that insulted me, and as I think grossly. 
But I may have been careless of your position 
when I spoke; and if you think so when you 
know all, my dear patron, you have but to say 
the word. For you I would obey in any point 
whatever, even to sin, God pardon me!” And 
thereupon I told him what had passed. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


129 

Mr. Henry smiled to himself; a grimmer smile 
I never witnessed. “ You did exactly well,” said 
he. “ He shall drink his Jessie Broun to the 
dregs.” And then, spying the Master outside, he 
opened the window, and crying to him by the 
name of Mr. Bally, asked him to step up and 
have a word. 

“ James,” said he, when our persecutor had 
come in and closed the door behind him, looking 
at me with a smile as if he thought I was to be 
humbled, “ you brought me a complaint against 
Mr. Mackellar into which I have inquired. I need 
not tell you I would always take his word against 
yours; for we are alone, and I am going to use 
something of your own freedom. Mr. Mackellar 
is a gentleman I value; and you must contrive, 
so long as you are under this roof, to bring 
yourself into no more collisions with one whom 
I will support at any possible cost to me or 
mine. As for the errand upon which you came 
to him, you must deliver yourself from the con- 
sequences of your own cruelty, and none of my 
servants shall be at all employed in such a 
case.” 

“ My father’s servants, I believe,” says the 
Master. 

“ Go to him with this tale,” said Mr. Henry. 

The Master grew very white. He pointed at 
9 


me with his finger. “ I want that man discharged,” 
he said. 

“ He shall not be,” said Mr. Henry. 

“ You shall pay pretty dear for this,” says the 
Master. 

“ I have paid so dear already for a wicked 
brother,” s.aid Mr. Henry, “ that I am bankrupt 
even of fears. You have no place left where you 
can strike me.” 

“ I will show you about that,” says the Master, 
and went softly away. 

“ What will he do next, Mackellar? ” cries Mr. 
Henry. 

“ Let me go away,” said I. “ My dear patron, 
let me go away; I am but the beginning of fresh 
sorrows.” 

“ Would you leave me quite alone?” said he. 

We were not long in suspense as to the nature of 
the new assault. Up to that hour, the Master had 
played a very close game with Mrs. Henry ; avoid- 
ing pointedly to be alone with her, which I took 
at the time for an effect of decency, but now think 
to be a most insidious art; meeting her, you may 
say, at mealtime only; and behaving, when he did 
so, like an affectionate brother. Up to that hour, 
you may say he had scarce directly interfered be- 
tween Mr. Henry and his wife; except in so far 


OF BALLANTRAE 


l 3 1 

as he had manoeuvred the one quite forth from the 
good graces of the other. Now, all that was to 
be changed ; but whether really in revenge, or be- 
cause he was wearying of Durrisdeer and looked 
about for some diversion, who but the devil shall 
decide ? 

From that hour at least, began the siege of Mrs. 
Henry; a thing so deftly carried on that I scarce 
know if she was aware of it herself, and that her 
husband must look on in silence. The first parallel 
was opened (as was made to appear) by accident. 
The talk fell, as it did often, on the exiles in France ; 
so it glided to the matter of their songs. 

“ There is one,” says the Master, “ if you are 
curious in these matters, that has always seemed to 
me very moving. The poetry is harsh; and yet, 
perhaps because of my situation, it has always 
found the way to my heart. It is supposed to be 
sung, I should tell you, by an exile’s sweetheart; 
and represents, perhaps, not so much the truth of 
what she is thinking, as the truth of what he hopes 
of her, poor soul! in these far lands.” And here 
the Master sighed. “ I protest it is a pathetic sight 
when a score of rough Irish, all common sentinels, 
get to this song; and you may see by their falling 
tears, how it strikes home to them. It goes thus, 
father,” says he, very adroitly taking my lord for 
his listener, “ and if I cannot get to the end of it. 


THE MASTER 


132 

you must think it is a common case with us exiles.’*] 1 

And thereupon he struck up the same air as I had 

• ' r 

heard the Colonel whistle ; but now to words, rustic 
indeed, yet most pathetically setting forth a poor 
girl’s aspirations for an exiled lover : of which one 1 
verse indeed (or something like it) still sticks by ^ 
me: 

O, I will die my petticoat red, 

With my dear boy I ’ll beg my bread, 

Though all my friends should wish me dead, 

For Willie among the rushes, O ! 

He sang it well even as a song ; but he did better 
yet as a performer. I have heard famous actors, 
when there was not a dry eye in the Edinburgh 
theatre; a great wonder to behold; but no more 
wonderful than how the Master played upon that 
little ballad and on those who heard him like an 
instrument, and seemed now upon the point of fail- 
ing, and now to conquer his distress, so that words 
and music seemed to pour out of his own heart and 
his own past, and to be aimed direct at Mrs. Henry. 
And his art went further yet; for all was so deli- 
cately touched, it seemed impossible to suspect him 
of the least design; and so far from making a 
parade of emotion, you would have sworn he was 
striving to be calm. When it came to an end, we all 
sat silent for a time ; he had chosen the dusk of the 
afternoon, so that none could see his neighbour’s 


OF BALLANTRAE 


i33 


face; but it seemed as if we held our breathing, 
only my old lord cleared his throat. The first to 
move was the singer, who got to his feet suddenly 
and softly, and went and walked softly to and fro 
in the low end of the hall, Mr. Henry’s customary 
place. We were to suppose that he there struggled 
down the last of his emotion; for he presently re- 
turned and launched into a disquisition on the nature 
of the Irish (always so much miscalled, and whom 
he defended) in his natural voice; so that, before 
the lights were brought, we were in the usual course 
of talk. But even then, methought Mrs. Henry’s 
face was a shade pale; and for another thing, she 
withdrew almost at once. 

The next sign was a friendship this insidious 
devil struck up with innocent Miss Katharine; so 
that they were always together, hand in hand, or 
she climbing on his knee, like a pair of children. 
Like all his diabolical acts, this cut in several ways. 
It was the last stroke to Mr. Henry, to see his own 
babe debauched against him; it made him harsh 
with the poor innocent, which brought him still 
a peg lower in his wife’s esteem ; and (to conclude) 
it was a bond of union between the lady and the 
Master. Under this influence, their old reserve 
melted by daily stages. Presently there came walks 
in the long shrubbery, talks in the Belvedere, and 
I know not what tender familiarity. I am sure 


134 


THE MASTER 


Mrs. Henry was like many a good woman; she 
had a whole conscience, but perhaps by the means 
of a little winking. For even to so dull an ob- 
server as myself, it was plain her kindness was of 
a more moving nature than the sisterly. The tones 
of her voice appeared more numerous; she had 
a light and softness in her eye; she was more 
gentle with all of us, even with Mr. Henry, even 
with myself; methought she breathed of some 
quiet melancholy happiness. 

To look on at this, what a torment it was for 
Mr. Henry ! And yet it brought our ultimate de- 
liverance, as I am soon to tell. 

The purport of the Master’s stay was no more 
noble (gild it as they might) than to wring money 
out. He had some design of a fortune in the 
French Indies, as the Chevalier wrote me; and it 
was the sum required for this that he came seek- 
ing. For the rest of the family it spelled ruin; 
but my lord, in his incredible partiality, pushed 
ever for the granting. The family was now so 
narrowed down (indeed there were no more of 
them than just the father and the two sons), that 
it was possible to break the entail, and alienate a 
piece of land. And to this, at first by hints, and 
then by open pressure, Mr. Henry was brought to 
consent. He never would have done so, I am very 


OF BALLANTRAE 


135 


well assured, but for the weight of the distress 
under which he laboured. But for his passionate 
eagerness to see his brother gone, he would not 
thus have broken with his own sentiment and the 
traditions of his house. And even so, he sold them 
his consent at a dear rate, speaking for once openly 
and holding the business up in its own shameful 
colours. 

“ You will observe,” he said, “ this is an injus- 
tice to my son, if ever I have one.” 

“ But that you are not likely to have,” said my 
lord. 

“ God knows ! ” says Mr. Henry. “ And con- 
sidering the cruel falseness of the position in which 
I stand to my brother, and that you, my lord, are 
my father and have the right to command me, I 
set my hand to this paper. But one thing I will 
say first: I have been ungenerously pushed, and 
when next, my lord, you are tempted to compare 
your sons, I call on you to remember what I have 
done and what he has done. Acts are the fair 
test.” 

My lord was the most uneasy man I ever saw; 
even in his old face the blood came up. “ I think 
this is not a very wisely chosen moment, Henry, 
for complaints,” said he. “ This takes away from 
the merit of your generosity.” 

“ Do not deceive yourself, my lord,” said Mr. 


THE MASTER 


136 

Henry. “ This injustice is not done from gen- 
erosity to him, but in obedience to yourself.” 

“ Before strangers . . .” begins my lord, still 
more unhappily affected. 

“ There is no one but Mackellar here,” said Mr. 
Henry ; “ he is my friend. And, my lord, as you 
make him no stranger to your frequent blame, it 
were hard if I must keep him one to a thing so 
rare as my defence.” 

Almost I believe my lord would have rescinded 
his decision ; but the Master was on the watch. 

“ Ah, Henry, Henry,” says he, “ you are the best 
of us still. Rugged and true! Ah, man, I wish I 
was as good.” 

And at that instance of his favourite’s generosity, 
my lord desisted from his hesitation, and the deed 
was signed. 

As soon as it could be brought about, the land 
of Ochterhall was sold for much below its value, 
and the money paid over to our leech and sent by 
some private carriage into France. Or so he said; 
though I have suspected since it did not go so far. 
And now here was all the man’s business brought 
to a successful head, and his pockets once more 
bulging with our gold ; and yet the point for which 
we had consented to this sacrifice was still denied 
us, and the visitor still lingered on at Durrisdeer. 
Whether in malice, or because the time was not yet 


OF BALLANTRAE 


*37 


come for his adventure to the Indies, or because he 
had hopes of his design on Mrs. Henry, or from 
the orders of the government, who shall say? but 
linger he did and that for weeks. 

You will observe I say: from the orders of 
. government ; for about this time, the man’s dis- 
reputable secret trickled out. 

The first hint I had was from a tenant, who 
commented on the Master’s stay and yet more on 
his security; for this tenant was a Jacobitish 
sympathiser, and had lost a son at Culloden, which 
gave him the more critical eye. “ There is one 
thing,” said he, “ that I cannot but think strange ; 
and that is how he got to Cockermouth.” 

“ To Cockermouth ? ” said I, with a sudden mem- 
ory of my first wonder on beholding the man dis- 
embark so point-de-vice after so long a voyage. 

“ Why, yes,” says the tenant, “ it was there 
he was picked up by Captain Crail. You thought 
he had come from France by sea? And so we all 
did.” 

I turned this news a little in my head, and then 
carried it to Mr. Henry. “ Here is an odd circum- 
stance,” said I, and told him. 

“ What matters how he came, Mackellar, so long 
as he is here? ” groans Mr. Henry. 

“ No, sir,” said I, “ but think again 1 Does not 
this smack a little of some government connivance? 


THE MASTER 


138 

You know how much we have wondered already 
at the man’s security.” 

“ Stop,” said Mr. Henry. “ Let me think of 
this.” And as he thought there came that grim 
smile upon his face that was a little like the 
Master’s. “ Give me paper,” said he. And he sat 
without another word and wrote to a gentleman 
of his acquaintance — I will name no unnecessary 
names, but he was one in a high place. This letter 
I despatched by the only hand I could depend upon 
in such a case, Macconochie’s ; and the old man 
rode hard, for he was back with the reply, before 
even my eagerness had ventured to expect him. 
Again, as he read it, Mr. Henry had the same 
grim smile. 

“ This is the best you have done for me yet, 
Mackellar,” says he. “ With this in my hand, I 
will give him a shog. Watch for us at dinner.” 

At dinner accordingly, Mr. Henry proposed 
some very public appearance for the Master; and 
my lord, as he had hoped, objected to the danger 
of the course. 

“ O,” says Mr. Henry, very easily, “ you need 
no longer keep this up with me. I am as much in 
the secret as yourself.” 

“ In the secret ? ” says my lord. “ What do 
you mean, Henry? I give you my word I am in 
no secret from which you are excluded.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


1 39 

The Master had changed countenance, and I saw 
he was struck in a joint of his harness. 

“ How ? ” says Mr. Henry, turning to him with 
a huge appearance of surprise. “ I see you serve 
your masters very faithfully; but I had thought 
you would have been humane enough to set your 
father’s mind at rest.” 

“ What are you talking of ? I refuse to have my 
business publicly discussed. I order this to cease,” 
cries the Master very foolishly and passionately, 
and indeed more like a child than a man. 

“ So much discretion was not looked for at your 
hands, I can assure you,” continued Mr. Henry. 
“ For see what my correspondent writes ” — un- 
folding the paper — “ ‘ It is, of course, in the in- 
terests both of the government and the gentleman 
whom we may perhaps best continue to call Mr. 
Bally, to keep this understanding secret; but it 
was never meant his own family should continue 
to endure the suspense you paint so feelingly ; and 
I am pleased mine should be the hand to set these 
fears at rest. Mr. Bally is as safe in Great Britain 
as yourself.’ ” 

“ Is this possible ? ” cries my lord, looking at his 
son, with a great deal of wonder and still more of 
suspicion in his face. 

“ My dear father,” says the Master, already 
much recovered, “ I am overjoyed that this may' 


140 


THE MASTER 


be disclosed. My own instructions direct from 
London bore a very contrary sense, and I was 
charged to keep the indulgence secret from every 
one, yourself not excepted, and indeed yourself 
expressly named — as I can show in black and 
white, unless I have destroyed the letter. They 
must have changed their mind very swiftly, for 
the whole matter is still quite fresh; or rather 
Henry’s correspondent must have misconceived that 
part, as he seems to have misconceived the rest. 
To tell you the truth, sir,” he continued, getting 
visibly more easy, “ I had supposed this unexplained 
favour to a rebel was the effect of some application 
from yourself ; and the injunction to secrecy among 
my family the result of a desire on your part to 
conceal your kindness. Hence I was the more 
careful to obey orders. It remains now to guess 
by what other channel indulgence can have flowed 
on so notorious an offender as myself; for I do 
not think your son need defend himself from what 
seems hinted at in Henry’s letter. I have never 
yet heard of a Durrisdeer who was a turncoat or 
a spy,” says he, proudly. 

And so it seemed he had swum out of this 
danger unharmed ; but this was to reckon without 
a blunder he had made, and without the pertinacity 
of Mr. Henry, who was now to show he had 
something of his brother’s spirit. 


OF BALLANTRAE 141 

1 “You say the matter is still fresh,” says Mr. 
s Henry. 

! “ It is recent,” says the Master, with a fair show 

f of stoutness and yet not without a quaver. 
i| “ Is it so recent as that?” asked Mr. Henry, 
r like a man a little puzzled, and spreading his letter 
■ forth again. 

In all the letter there was no word as to the date ; 
but how was the Master to know that? 

“ It seemed to come late enough for me,” says 
he, with a laugh. And at the sound of that laugh, 
which rang false like a cracked bell, my lord looked 
at him again across the table, and I saw his old 
lips draw together close. 

“ No,” said Mr. Henry, still glancing on his 
letter, “ but I remember your expression. You 
said it was very fresh.” 

And here we had a proof of our victory, and 
the strongest instance yet of my lord’s incredible 
indulgence; for what must he do but interfere to 
save his favourite from exposure! 

“ I think, Henry,” says he, with a kind of pitiful 
eagerness, “ I think we need dispute no more. We 
are all rejoiced at last to find your brother safe; 
we are all at one on that; and as grateful subjects, 
we can do no less than drink to the King’s health 
and bounty.” 

Thus was the Master extricated; but at least 


THE MASTER 


142 

he had been put to his defence, he had come lamely 
out, and the attraction of his personal danger was 
now publicly plucked away from him. My lord, in 
his heart of hearts, now knew his favourite to be 
a government spy; and Mrs. Henry (however she 
explained the tale) was notably cold in her be- 
haviour to the discredited hero of romance. Thus 
in the best fabric of duplicity, there is some weak 
point, if you can strike it, which will loosen all ; 
and if, by this fortunate stroke, we had not shaken 
the idol, who can say how it might have gone with 
us at the catastrophe ? 

And yet at the time we seemed to have accom- 
plished nothing. Before a day or two he had 
wiped off the ill-results of his discomfiture, and 
to all appearance, stood as high as ever. As for 
my Lord Durrisdeer, he was sunk in parental 
partiality; it was not so much love, which should 
be an active quality, as an apathy and torpor of his 
other powers; and forgiveness (so to misapply a 
noble word) flowed from him in sheer weakness, 
like the tears of senility. Mrs. Henry’s was a 
different case; and heaven alone knows what he 
found to say to her or how he persuaded her from 
her contempt. It is one of the worst things of 
sentiment, that the voice grows to be more im- 
portant than the words, and the speaker than that 
which is spoken. But some excuse the Master 


OF BALLANTRAE 


43 


must have found, or perhaps he had even struck 
upon some art to wrest this exposure to his own 
advantage; for after a time of coldness, it seemed 
as if things went worse than ever between him 
and Mrs. Henry. They were then constantly to- 
gether. I would not be thought to cast one shadow 
of blame, beyond what is due to a half-wilful 
blindness, on that unfortunate lady; but I do think, 

I in these last days, she was playing very near the 
fire; and whether I be wrong or not in that, one 
thing is sure and quite sufficient : Mr. Henry 
thought so. The poor gentleman sat for days in 
my room, so great a picture of distress that I could 
never venture to address him ; yet it is to be 
thought he found some comfort even in my pres- 
ence and the knowledge of my sympathy. There 
were times, too, when we talked, and a strange 
manner of talk it was; there was never a person 
named, nor an individual circumstance referred to ; 
yet we had the same matter in our minds, and we 
were each aware of it. It is a strange art that 
can thus be practised : to talk for hours of a thing, 

' and never name nor yet so much as hint at it. And 
I remember I wondered if it was by some such 
natural skill that the Master made love to Mrs. 
Henry all day long (as he manifestly did), yet 
never startled her into reserve. 

To show how far affairs had gone with Mr. 


i 4 4 


THE MASTER 


Henry, I will give some words of his, uttered (as 
I have cause not to forget) upon the 26th of Feb-i 
ruary, 1757. It was unseasonable weather, a cast : 
back into Winter: windless, bitter cold, the world 
all white with rime, the sky low and grey ; the sea 
black and silent like a quarry hole. Mr. Henry 
sat close by the fire and debated (as was now 
common with him) whether “ a man ” should “ do 
things,” whether “ interference was wise,” and the 
like general propositions, which each of us partic- 
ularly applied. I was by the window looking out, 
when there passed below me the Master, Mrs. 
Henry and Miss Katharine, that now constant trio. 
The child was running to and fro delighted with 
the frost; the Master spoke close in the lady’s ear 
with what seemed (even from so far) a devilish 
grace of insinuation; and she on her part looked 
on the ground like a person lost in listening. I 
broke out of my reserve. 

“ If I were you, Mr. Henry,” said I, “ I would 
deal openly with my lord.” 

“ Mackellar, Mackellar,” said he, “ you do not 
see the weakness of my ground. I can carry no 
such base thoughts to any one : to my father least 
of all ; that would be to fall into the bottom of his 
scorn. The weakness of my ground,” he continued, 
u lies in myself, that I am not one who engages 
love. I have their gratitude, they all tell me that : 


OF BALLANTRAE 


H5 


I have a rich estate of it ! But I am not present in 
their minds; they are moved neither to think with 
me nor to think for me. There is my loss ! ” He 
got to his feet and trod down the fire. “ But some 
method must be found, Mackellar,” said he, look- 
ing at me suddenly over his shoulder ; “ some way 
must be found. I am a man of a great deal of 
patience — far too much — far too much. I begin 
to despise myself. And yet sure never was a man 
involved in such a toil ! ” He fell back to his 
brooding. 

“ Cheer up,” said I. “ It will burst of itself.” 

“ I am far past anger now,” says he, which had 
so little coherency with my own observation, that 
I let both fall. 


146 


THE MASTER 


ACCOUNT OF ALL THAT PASSED 
ON THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 
27 th , 1757 

O N the evening of the interview referred 
to, the Master went abroad ; he was 
abroad a great deal of the next day also, 
that fatal 27th ; but where he went or what he did, 
we never concerned ourselves to ask until next 
day. If we had done so, and by any chance found 
out, it might have changed all. But as all we did 
was done in ignorance, and should be so judged, 
I shall so narrate these passages as they appeared 
to us in the moment of their birth, and reserve all 
that I since discovered for the time of its discovery. 
For I have now come to one of the dark parts of 
my narrative, and must engage the reader’s in- 
dulgence for my patron. 

All the 27th, that rigorous weather endured: a 
stifling cold; the folk passing about like smoking 
chimneys; the wide hearth in the hall piled high 
with fuel ; some of the spring birds that had already 
blundered north into our neighbourhood, besieg- 
ing the windows of the house or trotting on the 


OF BALLANTRAE 


i47 

frozen turf like things distracted. About noon 
there came a blink of sunshine; showing a very 
pretty, wintry, frosty landscape of white hills and 
woods, with Crail’s lugger waiting for a wind 
under the Craig Head, and the smoke mounting 
straight into the air from every farm and cottage. 
With the coming of night, the haze closed in over- 
head ; it fell dark and still and starless and exceed- 
ing cold: a night the most unseasonable, fit for 
strange events. 

Mrs. Henry withdrew, as was now her custom, 
very early. We had set ourselves of late to pass 
the evening with a game of cards; another mark 
that our visitor was wearying mightily of the life 
at Durrisdeer; and we had not been long at this, 
when my old lord slipped from his place beside the 
fire, and was off without a word to seek the 
warmth of bed. The three thus left together had 
neither love nor courtesy to share; not one of us 
would have sat up one instant to oblige another; 
yet from the influence of custom and as the cards 
had just been dealt, we continued the form of play- 
ing out the round. I should say we were late 
sitters; and though my lord had departed earlier 
than was his custom, twelve was already gone some 
time upon the clock, and the servants long ago in 
bed. Another thing I should say, that although 
I never saw the Master anyway affected with 


148 


THE MASTER 


liquor, he had been drinking freely and was perhaps 
(although he showed it not) a trifle heated. 

Anyway, he now practised one of his transitions ; 
and so soon as the door closed behind my lord, and 
without the smallest change of voice, shifted from 
ordinary civil talk into a stream of insult. 

“ My dear Henry, it is yours to play,” he had 
been saying, and now continued : “ It is a very 
strange thing how, even in so small a matter as 
a game of cards, you display your rusticity. You 
play, Jacob, like a bonnet laird, or a sailor in a 
tavern. The same dulness, the same petty greed, 
cette lenteur d’hebete qui me fait rager; it is 
strange I should have such a brother. Even 
Squaretoes has a certain vivacity when his stake 
is imperilled; but the dreariness of a game with 
you, I positively lack language to depict.” 

Mr. Henry continued to look at his cards, as 
though very maturely considering some play; but 
his mind was elsewhere. 

“ Dear God, will this never be done? ” cries the 
Master. “ Quel lourdeau! But why do I trouble 
you with French expressions, which are lost on such 
an ignoramus? A lourdeau, my dear brother, is 
as we might say a bumpkin, a clown, a clodpole: 
a fellow without grace, lightness, quickness ; any 
gift of pleasing, any natural brilliancy : such a one 
as you shall see, when you desire, by looking in 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


149 

the mirror. I tell you these things for your good, 
I assure you; and besides, Squaretoes ” (looking 
at me and stifling a yawn), “ it is one of my diver- 
sions in this very dreary spot, to toast you and your 
master at the fire like chestnuts. I have great 
pleasure in your case, for I observe the nickname 
(rustic as it is) has always the power to make 
you writhe. But sometimes I have more trouble 
with this dear fellow here, who seems to have 
gone to sleep upon his cards. Do you not see 
rhe applicability of the epithet I have just ex- 
plained, dear Henry? Let me show you. For 
instance, with all those solid qualities which I 
delight to recognise in you, I never knew 
a woman who did not prefer me — nor, I think,” 
he continued, with the most silken deliberation, 
“ I think — who did not continue to prefer 
me.” 

Mr. Henry laid down his cards. He rose to his 
feet very softly, and seemed all the while like a 
person in deep thought. “ You coward ! ” he said 
gently, as if to himself. And then, with neither 
hurry nor any particular violence, he struck the 
Master in the mouth. 

The Master sprang to his feet like one trans- 
figured; I had never seen the man so beautiful. 
“ A blow ! ” he cried. “ I would not take a blow 
from God Almighty.” 


I 5° 


THE MASTER 


“ Lower your voice,” said Mr. Henry. “ Do 
you wish my father to interfere for you again?” 

“ Gentlemen, gentlemen,” I cried, and sought to 
come between them. 

The Master caught me by the shoulder, held me 
at arm’s length, and still addressing his brother, 
“ Do you know what this means ? ” said he. 

“ It was the most deliberate act of my life,” says 
Mr. Henry. 

“ I must have blood, I must have blood for this,” 
says the Master. 

“ Please God, it shall be yours,” said Mr. Henry; 
and he went to the wall and took down a pair of 
swords that hung there with others, naked. These 
he presented to the Master by the points. “ Mac- 
kellar shall see us play fair,” said Mr. Henry. “ I 
think it very needful.” 

“ You need insult me no more,” said the Master, 
taking one of the swords at random. “ I have 
hated you all my life.” 

“ My father is but newly gone to bed,” said Mr. 
Henry. “We must go somewhere forth of the 
house.” 

“ There is an excellent place in the long shrub- 
bery,” said the Master. 

“ Gentlemen,” said I, “ shame upon you both ! 
Sons of the same mother, would you turn against 
the life she gave you?” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


151 

“ Even so, Mackellar,” said Mr. Henry, with 
the same perfect quietude of manner he had shown 
throughout. 

“ It is what I will prevent,” said I. 

And now here is a blot upon my life. At these 
words of mine, the Master turned his blade against 
my bosom ; I saw the light run along the steel ; and 
I threw up my arms and fell to my knees before 
him on the floor. “ No, no,” I cried, like a baby. 

“We shall have no more trouble with him,” said 
the Master. “ It is a good thing to have a coward 
in the house.” 

“We must have light,” said Mr. Henry, as 
though there had been no interruption. 

“ This trembler can bring a pair of candles,” 
said the Master. 

To my shame be it said, I was still so blinded 
with the flashing of that bare sword, that I volun- 
teered to bring a lantern. 

“ We do not need a 1-1-lantern,” says the Master, 
mocking me. “ There is no breath of air. Come, 
get to your feet, take a pair of lights, and go before. 
I am close behind with this — ” making the blade 
glitter as he spoke. 

I took up the candlesticks and went before them, 
steps that I would give my hand to recall; but a 
coward is a slave at the best; and even as I went, 
my teeth smote each other in my mouth. It was as 


THE MASTER 


152 

Ve had said, there was no breath stirring: a wind- 
less stricture of frost had bound the air ; and as we 
went forth in the shine of the candles, the black- 
ness was like a roof over our heads. Never a word 
was said, there was never a sound but the creaking 
of our steps along the frozen path. The cold of the 
night fell about me like a bucket of water ; I shook 
as I went with more than terror; but my compan- 
ions, bareheaded like myself and fresh from the 
warm hall, appeared not even conscious of the 
change. 

“ Here is the place,” said the Master. “ Set 
down the candles.” 

I did as he bid me, and presently the flames went 
up as steady as in a chamber in the midst of the 
frosted trees, and I beheld these two brothers take 
their places. 

“ The light is something in my eyes,” said the 
Master. 

“ I will give you every advantage,” replied Mr. 
Henry, shifting his ground, “ for I think you are 
about to die.” He spoke rather sadly than other- 
wise, yet there was a ring in his voice. 

“ Henry Durie,” said the Master, “ two words 
before I begin. You are a fencer, you can hold 
a foil; you little know what a change it makes to 
hold a sword ! And by that I know you are to fall. 
But see how strong is my situation! If you fall, I 


OF BALLANTRAE 


l S3 


shift out of this country to where my money is 
before me. If I fall, where are you? My father, 
your wife who is in love with me — as you very 
well know — your child even who prefers me to 
yourself : — how will these avenge me ! Had you 
thought of that, dear Henry ? ” He looked at his 
brother with a smile; then made a fencing-room 
salute. 

Never a word said Mr. Henry, but saluted too, 
and the swords rang together. 

I am no judge of the play, my head besides was 
gone with cold and fear and horror; but it seems 
that Mr. Henry took and kept the upper-hand from 
the engagement, crowding in upon his foe with a 
contained and glowing fury. Nearer and nearer 
he crept upon the man till, of a sudden, the Master 
leaped back with a little sobbing oath; and I be- 
lieve the movement brought the light once more 
against his eyes. To it they went again, on the 
fresh ground ; but now methought closer, Mr. 
Henry pressing more outrageously, the Master 
beyond doubt with shaken confidence. For it is 
beyond doubt he now recognised himself for lost, 
and had some taste of the cold agony of fear; or 
he had never attempted the foul stroke. I cannot 
say I followed it, my untrained eye was never 
quick enough to seize details, but it appears he 
caught his brother’s blade with his left hand, a 


THE MASTER 


154 

practice not permitted. Certainly Mr. Henry only 
saved himself by leaping on one side; as certainly 
the Master, lunging in the air, stumbled on his 
knee, and before he could move, the sword was 
through his body. 

I cried out with a stifled scream, and ran in ; but 
the body was already fallen to the ground, where 
it writhed a moment like a trodden worm, and 
then lay motionless. 

“ Look at his left hand,” said Mr. Henry. 

“ It is all bloody,” said I. 

“ On the inside? ” said he. 

“ It is cut on the inside,” said I. 

“ I thought so,” said he, and turned his back. 

I opened the man’s clothes; the heart was quite 
still, it gave not a flutter. 

“ God forgive us, Mr. Henry! ” said I. “ He is 
dead.” 

“ Dead ? ” he repeated, a little stupidly ; and then 
with a rising tone, “ Dead ? dead ? ” says he, and 
suddenly cast his bloody sword upon the ground. 

“ What must we do? ” said I. “ Be yourself, sir. 
It is too late now : you must be yourself.” 

He turned and stared at me. “ O, Mackellar ! ” 
says he, and put his face in his hands. 

I plucked him by the coat. “ For God’s sake, 
for all our sakes, be more courageous ! ” said I. 
“ What must we do ? ” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


*55 


He showed me his face with the same stupid 
stare. “Do?” says he. And with that his eye 
fell on the body, and “ O ! ” he cries out, with his 
hand to his brow, as if he had never remembered; 
and turning from me, made off towards the house 
of Durrisdeer at a strange stumbling run. 

I stood a moment mused; then it seemed to me 
my duty lay most plain on the side of the living; 
and I ran after him, leaving the candles on the 
frosty ground and the body lying in their light 
under the trees. But run as I pleased, he had the 
start of me, and was got into the house, and up 
to the hall, where I found him standing before the 
fire with his face once more in his hands, and as 
he so stood, he visibly shuddered. 

“ Mr. Henry, Mr. Henry,” I said, “ this will be 
the ruin of us all.” 

“ What is this that I have done? ” cries he, and 
then, looking upon me with a countenance that I 
shall never forget, “ Who is to tell the old man? ” 
he said. 

The word knocked at my heart; but it was no 
time for weakness. I went and poured him out a 
glass of brandy. “ Drink that,” said I, “ drink it 
down.” I forced him to swallow it like a child; 
and, being still perished with the cold of the night, 
I followed his example. 

“ It has to be told, Mackellar,” said he. “ It must 


THE MASTER 


156 

be told.” And he fell suddenly in a seat — my old 
lord’s seat by the chimney-side — and was shaken 
with dry sobs. 

Dismay came upon my soul; it was plain there 
was no help in Mr. Henry. “ Well,” said I, “ sit 
there, and leave all to me.” And taking a candle 
in my hand, I set forth out of the room in the dark 
house. There was no movement; I must suppose 
that all had gone unobserved; and I was now to 
consider how to smuggle through the rest with the 
like secrecy. It was no hour for scruples; and I 
opened my lady’s door without so much as a knock, 
and passed boldly in. 

“ There is some calamity happened,” she cried, 
sitting up in bed. 

“ Madam,” said I, “ I will go forth again into 
the passage ; and do you get as quickly as you can 
into your clothes. There is much to be done.” 

She troubled me with no questions, nor did she 
keep me waiting. Ere I had time to prepare a 
word of that which I must say to her, she was on 
the threshold signing me to enter. 

“ Madam,” said I, “ if you cannot be very brave, 
I must go elsewhere; for if no one helps me to- 
night, there is an end of the house of Durrisdeer.” 

“I am very courageous,” said she; and she 
looked at me with a sort of smile, very painful to 
see, but very brave too. 


O F BALLANTRAE 


l 5 7 


“ It has come to a duel/’ said I. 

“ A duel ? ” she repeated. “ A duel ! Henry 
and ” 

“ And the Master,” said I. “ Things have been 
borne so long, things of which you know nothing, 
which you would not believe if I should tell. But 
to-night it went too far, and when he insulted 


“ Stop,” said she. “He? Who?” 

“ O madam ! ” cried I, my bitterness breaking 
forth, “ do you ask me such a question ? Indeed, 
then, I may go elsewhere for help; there is none 
here ! ” 

“ I do not know in what I have offended you,” 
said she. “ Forgive me ; put me out of this 
suspense.” 

But I dared not tell her yet; I felt not sure of 
her; and at the doubt and under the sense of im- 
potence it brought with it, I turned on the poor 
woman with something near to anger. 

“ Madam,” said I, “ we are speaking of two men : 
me of them insulted you, and you ask me which. I 
/ill help you to the answer. With one of these men 
you have spent all your hours : has the other re- 
proached you ? To one you have been always kind ; 
to the other, as God sees me and judges between 
us two, I think not always : has his love ever 
failed you? To-night one of these two men told 


THE MASTER 


158 

the other, in my hearing, — the hearing of a hired | 
stranger, — that you were in love with him. Be- 
fore I say one word, you shall answer your own 
question: Which was it? Nay, madam, you shall 
answer me another: If it has come to this dread- 
ful end, whose fault is it?” 

She stared at me like one dazzled. “ Good 
God ! ” she said once, in a kind of bursting ex- 
clamation; and then a second time, in a whisper 
to herself, “ Great God ! — In the name of mercy, 
Mackellar, what is wrong?” she cried. “ I am 
made up; I can hear all.” 

“ You are not fit to hear,” said I. “ Whatever 
it was, you shall say first it was your fault.” 

“ Oh ! ” she cried, with a gesture of wringing 
her hands, “ this man will drive me mad ! Can 
you not put me out of your thoughts ? ” 

“ I think not once of you,” I cried. “ I think of 
none but my dear unhappy master.” 

“ Ah ! ” she cried, with her hand to her heart, 

“ is Henry dead ? ” 

“ Lower your voice,” said I. “ The other.” 

I saw her sway like something stricken by the 
wind; and I know not whether in cowardice or 
misery, turned aside and looked upon the floor. 

“ These are dreadful tidings,” said I at length, 
when her silence began to put me in some fear; 

“ and you and I behove to be the more bold if the 


OF BALLANTRAE 


l S9 


house is to be saved.” Still she answered nothing. 
“ There is Miss Katharine besides,” I added : 
u unless we bring this matter through, her inher- 
itance is like to be of shame.” 

I do not know if it was the thought of her 
child or the naked word shame, that gave her 
deliverance; at least I had no sooner spoken than 
a sound passed her lips, the like of it I never 
heard ; it was as though she had lain buried 
under a hill and sought to move that burthen. 
And the next moment she had found a sort of 
voice. 

“ It was a fight,” she whispered. “ It was 
not ?” and she paused upon the word. 

“ It was a fair fight on my dear master’s part,” 
said I. “ As for the other, he was slain in the very 
act of a foul stroke.” 

“ Not now ! ” she cried. 

“ Madam,” said I, “ hatred of that man glows in 
my bosom like a burning fire; ay, even now he is 
dead. God knows, I would have stopped the fight- 
ing, had I dared. It is my shame I did not. But 
when I saw him fall, if I could have spared one 
thought from pitying of my master, it had been to 
exult in that deliverance.” 

I do not know if she marked ; but her next 
words were : “ My lord ? ” 

“ That shall be my part,” said I. 


160 THE MASTER 

“ You will not speak to him as you have to me? ” 
she asked. 

“ Madam,” said I, “ have you not some one else 
to think of? Leave my lord to me.” 

“ Some one else? ” she repeated. 

“ Your husband,” said I. She looked at me 
with a countenance illegible. “ Are you going to 
turn your back on him ? ” I asked. 

Still she looked at me; then her hand went to 
her heart again. “ No,” said she. 

“ God bless you for that word ! ” I said. “ Go 
to him now where he sits in the hall ; speak to him 
— it matters not what you say; give him your 
hand ; say, 4 1 know all ; ’ — if God gives you grace 
enough, say, ‘ Forgive me/ ” 

“ God strengthen you, and make you merciful,” 
said she. “ I will go to my husband.” 

“ Let me light you there,” said I, taking up the 
candle. 

“ I will find my way in the dark,” she said, 
with a shudder, and I think the shudder was at 
me. 

So we separated, she down-stairs to where a little 
light glimmered in the hall-door, I along the pas- 
sage to my lord’s room. It seems hard to say why, 
but I could not burst in on the old man as I could 
on the young woman ; with whatever reluctance, I 
must knock. But his old slumbers were light, or 


OF BALLANTRAE 161 

perhaps he slept not; and at the first summons I 
was bidden enter. 

He too sat up in bed; very aged and bloodless 
he looked ; and whereas he had a certain largeness 
of appearance when dressed for daylight, he now 
seemed frail and little, and his face (the wig being 
laid aside) not bigger than a child’s. This daunted 
me ; nor less, the haggard surmise of misfortune in 
his eye. Yet his voice was even peaceful as he in- 
quired my errand. I set my candle down upon a 
chair, leaned on the bed-foot, and looked at him. 

“ Lord Durrisdeer,” said I, “ it is very well 
known to you that I am a partisan in your family.” 

“ I hope we are none of us partisans,” said he. 
“ That you love my son sincerely, I have always 
been glad to recognise.” 

“ O, my lord, we are past the hour of these 
civilities,” I replied. “If we are to save anything 
out of the fire, we must look the fact in its bare 
countenance. A partisan I am ; partisans we have 
all been; it is as a partisan that I am here in the 
middle of the night to plead before you. Hear me ; 
before I go, I will tell you why.” 

“ I would always hear you, Mr. Mackellar,” 
said he, “ and that at any hour, whether of the day 
or night, for I would be always sure you had a 
reason. You spoke once before to very proper 
purpose; I have not forgotten that.” 


ii 


162 


THE MASTER 


“ I am here to plead the cause of my master,” 
I said. “ I need not tell you how he acts. You 
know how he is placed. You know with what gen- 
erosity he has always met your other — met your 
wishes,” I corrected myself, stumbling at that 
name of son. “ You know — you must know — 
what he has suffered — what he has suffered about 
his wife.” 

“ Mr. Mackellar ! ” cried my lord, rising in bed 
like a bearded lion. 

“ You said you would hear me,” I continued. 
“ What you do not know, what you should know, 
one of the things I am here to speak of — is the 
persecution he must bear in private. Your back is 
not turned, before one whom I dare not name to 
you falls upon him with the most unfeeling taunts ; 
twits him — pardon me, my lord ! twits him with 
your partiality, calls him Jacob, calls him clown, 
pursues him with ungenerous raillery, not to be 
borne by man. And let but one of you appear, 
instantly he changes; and my master must smile 
and courtesy to the man who has been feeding him 
with insults ; I know — for I have shared in some 
of it, and I tell you the life is insupportable. All 
these months it has endured; it began with the 
man’s landing; it was by the name of Jacob that; 
my master was greeted the first night.” 

My lord made a movement as if to throw aside 


OF BALLANTRAE 163 

the clothes and rise. “If there be any truth in 
this ” said he. 

“Do I look like a man lying?” I interrupted, 
checking him with my hand. 

“ You should have told me at first,” he said. 

“ Ah, my lord, indeed I should, and you may 
well hate the face of this unfaithful servant ! ” I 
cried. 

“ I will take order,” said he, “ at once.” And 
again made the movement to rise. 

Again I checked him. “ I have not done,” said 
I. “ Would God I had ! All this my dear, un- 
fortunate patron has endured without help or 
countenance. Your own best word, my lord, was 
only gratitude. Oh, but he was your son, too! 
He had no other father. He was hated in the 
country, God knows how unjustly. He had a love- 
less marriage. He stood on all hands without af- 
fection or support, dear, generous, ill-fated, noble 
heart.” 

“ Your tears do you much honour and me much 
shame,” says my lord, with a palsied trembling. 
“ But you do me some injustice. Henry has been 
ever dear to me, very dear. James (I do not deny 
it, Mr. Mackellar), James is perhaps dearer; you 
have not seen my James in quite a favourable 
light; he has suffered under his misfortunes; and 
we can only remember how great and how un- 


i6 4 THE MASTER 

merited these were. And even now his is the more 
affectionate nature. But I will not speak of him. 
All that you say of Henry is most true; I do not 
wonder, I know him to be very magnanimous ; you 
will say I trade upon the knowledge? It is pos- 
sible; there are dangerous virtues, virtues that 
tempt the encroacher. Mr. Mackellar, I will make 
it up to him; I will take order with all this. I 
have been weak; and what is worse, I have been 
dull.” 

“ I must not hear you blame yourself, my lord, 
with that which I have yet to tell upon my con- 
science,” I replied. “ You have not been weak ; 
you have been abused by a devilish dissembler. 
You saw yourself how he had deceived you in 
the matter of his danger; he has deceived you 
throughout in every step of his career. I wish 
to pluck him from your heart; I wish to force 
your eyes upon your other son; ah, you have a 
son there! ” 

“ No, no,” said he, “ two sons — I have two 
sons.” 

I made some gesture of despair that struck him ; 
he looked at me with a changed face. “ There is 
much worse behind ? ” he asked, his voice dying 
as it rose upon the question. 

“ Much worse,” I answered. “ This night he 
said these words to Mr. Henry : ‘ I have never 


OF BALLANTRAE 165 

known a woman who did not prefer me to you, 
and I think who did not continue to prefer me.’ ” 

“ I will hear nothing against my daughter,” he 
cried; and from his readiness to stop me in this 
direction, I conclude his eyes were not so dull as 
I had fancied, and he had looked on not without 
anxiety upon the siege of Mrs. Henry. 

“ I think not of blaming her,” cried I. “ It is 
not that. These words were said in my hearing 
to Mr. Henry; and if you find them not yet plain 
enough, these others but a little after: ‘ Your wife 
who is in love with me.’ ” 

“ They have quarrelled ? ” he said. 

I nodded. 

“ I must fly to them,” he said, beginning once 
again to leave his bed. 

“ No, no! ” I cried, holding forth my hands. 

“ You do not know,” said he. “ These are dan- 
gerous words.” 

“ Will nothing make you understand, my lord? ” 
said I. 

His eyes besought me for the truth. 

I flung myself on my knees by the bedside. “ O 
my lord,” cried I, “ think on him you have left, 
think of this poor sinner whom you begot, whom 
your wife bore to you, whom we have none of us 
strengthened as we could; think of him, not of 
yourself ; he is the other sufferer — think of him ! 


1 66 


THE MASTER 


That is the door for sorrow, Christ’s door, God’s 
door: O, it stands open. Think of him, even as 
he thought of you. Who is to tell the old man? 
— these were his words. It was for that I came ; 
that is why I am here pleading at your feet.” 

“ Let me get up,” he cried, thrusting me aside, 
and was on his feet before myself. His voice 
shook like a sail in the wind, yet he spoke with a 
good loudness ; his face was like the snow, but his 
eyes were steady and dry. “ Here is too much 
speech ! ” said he. “ Where was it ? ” 

“ In the shrubbery,” said I. 

“ And Mr. Henry ? ” he asked. And when I had 
told him he knotted his old face in thought. 

“ And Mr. James? ” says he. 

“ I have left him lying,” said I, “ beside the 
candles.” 

“ Candles ? ” he cried. And with that he ran to 
the window, opened it, and looked abroad. “ It 
might be spied from the road.” 

“ Where none goes by at such an hour,” I 
objected. 

“ It makes no matter,” he said. “ One might. 
Hark! ” cries he. “ What is that? ” 

It was the sound of men very guardedly rowing 
in the bay ; and I told him so. 

“ The freetraders,” said my lord. “ Run at once, 
Mackellar, put these candles out. I will dress in 


OF BALLANTRAE 167 

the meanwhile; and when you return we can de- 
bate on what is wisest/’ 

I groped my way down-stairs, and out at the 
door. From quite a far way off a sheen was 
visible, making points of brightness in the shrub- 
bery; in so black a night it might have been re- 
marked for miles; and I blamed myself bitterly 
for my incaution : how much more sharply when 
I reached the place! One of the candlesticks was 
overthrown, and that taper quenched. The other 
burned steadily by itself, and made a broad space 
of light upon the frosted ground. All within that 
circle seemed, by the force of contrast and the 
overhanging blackness, brighter than by day. And 
there was the bloodstain in the midst ; and a little 
further off Mr. Henry’s sword, the pommel of 
which was of silver; but of the body not a trace. 
My heart thumped upon my ribs, the hair stirred 
upon my scalp, as I stood there staring ; so strange 
was the sight, so dire the fears it wakened. I 
looked right and left; the ground was so hard it 
told no story. I stood and listened till my ears 
ached, but the night was hollow about me like an 
empty church; not even a ripple stirred upon the 
shore ; it seemed you might have heard a pin drop 
in the county. 

I put the candle out, and the blackness fell about 
me groping dark ; it was like a crowd surrounding 


1 68 


THE MASTER 


me; and I went back to the house of Durrisdeer, 
with my chin upon my shoulder, startling, as I 
went, with craven suppositions. In the door a 
figure moved to meet me, and I had near screamed 
with terror ere I recognised Mrs. Henry. 

“ Have you told him ? ” says she. 

“ It was he who sent me,” said I. “ It is gone. 
But why are you here ? ” 

“ It is gone ! ” she repeated. “ What is gone ? ” 

“ The body,” said I. “ Why are you not with 
your husband ? ” 

“ Gone? ” said she. “ You cannot have looked. 
Come back.” 

“ There is no light now,” said I. “ I dare not.” 

“ I can see in the dark. I have been standing 
here so long — so long,” said she. “ Come ; give 
me your hand.” 

We returned to the shrubbery hand in hand, and 
to the fatal place. 

“ Take care of the blood,” said I. 

“ Blood ? ” she cried, and started violently back. 

I suppose it will be,” said I. “ I am like a 
blind man.” 

“ No,” said she, “ nothing! Have you not 
dreamed ? ” 

“ Ah, would to God we had ! ” cried I. 

She spied the sword, picked it up, and, seeing 
the blood, let it fall again with her hands thrown 


OF BALLANTRAE 169 

wide. “ Ah ! ” she cried. And then, with an in- 
stant courage, handled it the second time and 
thrust it to the hilt into the frozen ground. “ I 
will take it back and clean it properly,” says she, 
and again looked about her on all sides. “ It can- 
not be that he was dead ? ” she added. 

“ There was no flutter of his heart,” said I, and 
then remembering : “ Why are you not with your 
husband ? ” 

“ It is no use,” said she, “ he will not speak to 
me. 

“Not speak to you?” I repeated. “ O, you 
have not tried ! ” 

“You have a right to doubt me,” she replied, 
with a gentle dignity. 

At this, for the first time, I was seized with 
sorrow for her. “ God knows, madam,” I cried, 
“ God knows I am not so hard as I appear ; on 
this dreadful night, who can veneer his words? 
But I am a friend to all who are not Henry 
Durie’s enemies ! ” 

“ It is hard, then, you should hesitate about his 
wife,” said she. 

I saw all at once, like the rending of a veil, how 
nobly she had borne this unnatural calamity, and 
how generously my reproaches. 

“We must go back and tell this To my lord,” 
said I. 


THE M AST E R 


170 

“ Him I cannot face,” she cried. 

“ You will find him the least moved of all of 
us,” said I. 

“ And yet I cannot face him,” said she. 

“ Well,” said I, “ you can return to Mr. Henry; 
I will see my lord.” 

As we walked back, I bearing the candlesticks, 
she the sword, — a strange burthen for that woman, 

— she had another thought. “ Should we tell 
Henry ? ” she asked. 

“ Let my lord decide,” said I. 

My lord was nearly dressed when I came to 
his chamber. He heard me with a frown. “ The 
freetraders,” said he. “ But whether dead or 
alive? ” 

“ I thought him — ” said I, and paused, ashamed 
of the word. 

“ I know ; but you may very well have been in 
error. Why should they remove him if not liv- 
ing? ” he asked. “ O, here is a great door of hope. 
It must be given out that he departed — as he came 

— without any note of preparation. We must save 
all scandal.” 

I saw he had fallen, like the rest of us, to think 
mainly of the house. Now that all the living 
members of the family were plunged in irremedi- 
able sorrow, it was strange how we turned to that 
conjoint abstraction of the family itself, and sought 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


171 


to bolster up the airy nothing of its reputation: 
not the Duries only, but the hired steward himself. 

“ Are we to tell Mr. Henry ? ” I asked him. 

“ I will see/’ said he. “ I am going first to 
visit him, then I go forth with you to view the 
shrubbery and consider.’’ 

We went down-stairs into the hall. Mr. Henry 
sat by the table with his head upon his hand, like 
a man of stone. His wife stood a little back from 
him, her hand at her mouth; it was plain she 
could not move him. My old lord walked very 
steadily to where his son was sitting; he had a 
steady countenance, too, but methought a little cold ; 
when he was come quite up, he held out both his 
hands and said : “ My son ! ” 

With a broken, strangled cry, Mr. Henry leaped 
up and fell on his father’s neck, crying and weep- 
ing, the most pitiful sight that ever a man wit- 
nessed. “ O father,” he cried, “ you know I loved 
him; you know I loved him in the beginning; 
I could have died for him — you know that ! I 
would have given my life for him and you. O 
•say you know that! O say you can forgive me! 
O father, father, what have I done, what have I 
done? and we used to be bairns together!” and 
wept and sobbed, and fondled the old man, and 
clutched him about the neck, with the passion of 
a child in terror. 


172 


THE MASTER 


And then he caught sight of his wife, you would 
have thought for the first time, where she stood 
weeping to hear him ; and in a moment had fallen 
at her knees. “ And O my lass,” he cried, “ you 
must forgive me, too ! Not your husband — I 
have only been the ruin of your life. But you 
knew me when I was a lad; there was no harm 
in Henry Durie then ; he meant aye to be a friend 
to you. It ’s him — it ’s the old bairn that played 
with you — O can ye never, never forgive him ? ” 

Throughout all this my lord was like a cold, 
kind spectator with his wits about him. At the 
first cry, which was indeed enough to call the 
house about us, he had said to me over his shoulder, 
“ Close the door.” And now he nodded to himself. 

“ We may leave him to his wife now,” says he. 
“ Bring a light, Mr. Mackellar.” 

Upon my going forth again with my lord, I 
was aware of a strange phenomenon; for though 
it was quite dark, and the night not yet old, me- 
thought I smelt the morning. At the same time 
there went a tossing through the branches of the 
evergreens, so that they sounded like a quiet sea; 
and the air puffed at times against our faces, and 
the flame of the candle shook. We made the 
more speed, I believe, being surrounded by this 
bustle; visited the scene of the duel, where my 
lord looked upon the blood with stoicism; and 


OF BALLANTRAE 


I 73 


passing farther on toward the landing-place, came 
at last upon some evidences of the truth. For 
first of all, where there was a pool across the 
path, the ice had been trodden in, plainly by more 
than one man’s weight; next, and but a little fur- 
ther, a young tree was broken; and down by the 
landing-place, where the trader’s boats were usu- 
ally beached, another stain of blood marked where 
the body must have been infallibly set down to 
rest the bearers. 

This stain we set ourselves to wash away with 
the sea-water, carrying it in my lord’s hat; and 
as we were thus engaged, there came up a sudden, 
moaning gust and left us instantly benighted. 

“ It will come to snow,” says my lord ; “ and 
the best thing that we could hope. Let us go 
back now; we can do nothing in the dark.” 

As we went houseward, the wind being again 
subsided, we were aware of a strong pattering 
noise about us in the night; and when we issued 
from the shelter of the trees, we found it raining 
smartly. 

Throughout the whole of this, my lord’s clear- 
ness of mind, no less than his activity of body, 
had not ceased to minister to my amazement. He 
set the crown upon it in the council we held on 
our return. The freetraders had certainly secured 
the Master, though whether dead or alive we were 


174 


THE MASTER 


still left to our conjectures ; the rain would, long 
before day, wipe out all marks of the transaction ; | 
by this we must profit : the Master had unex- 
pectedly come after the fall of night, it must now 
be given out he had as suddenly departed before 
the break of day; and to make all this plausible, 
it now only remained for me to mount into the 
man’s chamber, and pack and conceal his baggage. 
True, we still lay at the discretion of the traders; 
but that was the incurable weakness of our guilt. 

I heard him, . as I said, with wonder, and 
hastened to obey. Mr. and Mrs. Henry were 
gone from the hall; my lord, for warmth’s sake, 
hurried to his bed; there was still no sign of 
stir among the servants, and as I went up the 
tower stair, and entered the dead man’s room, a 
horror of solitude weighed upon my mind. To 
my extreme surprise, it was all in the disorder 
of departure. Of his three portmanteaus, two 
were ready locked, the third lay open and near 
full. At once there flashed upon me some sus- 
picion of the truth. The man had been going 
after all; he had but waited upon Crail, as Crail 
waited upon the wind; early in the night, the 
seamen had perceived the weather changing; the 
boat had come to give notice of the change and 
call the passenger aboard, and the boat’s crew had 
stumbled on him lying in his blood. Nay, and 


OF BALLANTRAE 


I 7S 


there was more behind. This prearranged de- 
parture shed some light upon his inconceivable 
insult of the night before; it was a parting shot; 
hatred being no longer checked by policy. And 
for another thing, the nature of that insult, and 
the conduct of Mrs. Henry, pointed to one con- 
clusion: which I have never verified, and can 
now never verify until the great assize: the con- 
clusion that he had at last forgotten himself, had 
gone too far in his advances, and had been re- 
buffed. It can never be verified, as I say; but 
as I thought of it that morning among his 
baggage, the thought was sweet to me like 
honey. 

Into the open portmanteau I dipped a little ere 
I closed it. The most beautiful lace and linen, 
many suits of those fine plain clothes in which 
he loved to appear; a book or two, and those of 
the best, Caesar’s “ Commentaries,” a volume of 
Mr. Hobbes, the “ Henriade ” of M. de Voltaire, 
a book upon the Indies, one on the mathematics, 
far beyond where I have studied : these were what 
I observed with very mingled feelings. But in 
the open portmanteau, no papers of any descrip- 
tion. This set me musing. It was possible the 
man was dead; but, since the traders had carried 
him away, not likely. It was possible he might 
still die of his wound ; but it was also possible he 


THE MASTER 


176 

might not. And in this latter case I was deter- 
mined to have the means of some defence. 

One after another I carried his portmanteaus 
to a loft in the top of the house which we kept 
locked; went to my own room for my keys, and, 
returning to the loft, had the gratification to find 
two that fitted pretty well. In one of the port- 
manteaus there was a shagreen letter-case, which 
I cut open with my knife; and thenceforth (so 
far as any credit went) the man was at my 
mercy. Here was a vast deal of gallant corre- 
spondence, chiefly of his Paris days; and what 
was more to the purpose, here were the copies 
of his own reports to the English secretary, and 
the originals of the secretary’s answers: a most 
damning series: such as to publish would be to 
wreck the Master’s honour and to set a price 
upon his life. I chuckled to myself as I ran 
through the documents; I rubbed my hands, I 
sang aloud in my glee. Day found me at the 
pleasing task; nor did I then remit my diligence, 
except in so far as I went to the window — 
looked out for a moment, to see the frost quite 
gone, the world turned black again, and the rain 
and the wind driving in the bay — and to assure 
myself that the lugger was gone from its anchor- 
age, and the Master (whether dead or alive) now 
tumbling on the Irish Sea. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


177 

It is proper I should add in this place the very 
little I have subsequently angled out upon the 
doings of that night. It took me a long while 
to gather it; for we dared not openly ask, and 
the freetraders regarded me with enmity, if not 
with scorn. It was near six months before we 
even knew for certain that the man survived; 
and it was years before I learned from one of 
Crail’s men, turned publican on his ill-gotten gain, 
some particulars which smack to me of truth. It 
seems the traders found the Master struggled on 
one elbow, and now staring round him, and now 
gazing at the candle or at his hand which was 
all bloodied, like a man stupid. Upon their com- 
ing, he would seem to have found his mind, bade 
them carry him aboard and hold their tongues; 
and on the captain asking how he had come in 
such a pickle, replied with a burst of passionate 
swearing, and incontinently fainted. They held 
; ome debate, but they were momently looking for 
a wind, they were highly paid to smuggle him to 
France, and did not care to delay. Besides which, 
he was well enough liked by these abominable 
v retches: they supposed him under capital sen- 
tence, knew not in what mischief he might have 
got his wound, and judged it a piece of good 
nature to remove him out of the way of danger. 
So he was taken aboard, recovered on the pas- 


178 THE MASTER 

sage over, and was set ashore a convalescent at 
the Havre de Grace. What is truly notable: he 
said not a word to any one of the duel, and not 
a trader knows to this day in what quarrel, or 
by the hand of what adversary, he fell. With 
any other man I should have set this down to 
natural decency; with him, to pride. He could 
not bear to avow, perhaps even to himself, that 
he had been vanquished by one whom he had sc 
much insulted and whom he so cruelly despised. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


179 


SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING 
THE MASTER’S SECOND ABSENCE 

O F the heavy sickness which declared it- 
self next morning, I can think with 
equanimity as of the last unmingled 
trouble that befell my master; and even that was 
perhaps a mercy in disguise; for what pains of 
the body could equal the miseries of his mind? 
Mrs. Henry and I had the watching by the bed. 
My old lord called from time to time to take the 
news, but would not usually pass the door. Once, 
I remember, when hope was nigh gone, he stepped 
to the bedside, looked awhile in his son’s face, 
and turned away with a singular gesture of the 
head and hand thrown up, that remains upon my 
mind as something tragic; such grief and such 
a scorn of sublunary things were there expressed. 
But the most of the time, Mrs. Henry and I had^ 
the room to ourselves, taking turns by night and 
bearing each other company by day, for it was 
dreary watching. Mr. Henry, his shaven head 
bound in a napkin, tossed to and fro without re- 
mission, beating the bed with his hands. His 


180 THE MASTER 

tongue never lay; his voice ran continuously like | 
a river; so that my heart was weary with the ; 
sound of it. It was notable, and to me inex- 
pressibly mortifying, that he spoke all the while 
on matters of no import: comings and goings, 
horses — which he was ever calling to have sad- 
dled, thinking perhaps (the poor soul!) that he 
might ride away from his discomfort — matters 
of the garden, the salmon nets, and (what I par- 
ticularly raged to hear) continually of his affairs, 
cyphering figures and holding disputation with the 
tenantry. Never a word of his father or his wife, 
nor of the Master, save only for a day or two, 
when his mind dwelled entirely in the past and 
he supposed himself a boy again and upon some 
innocent child’s play with his brother. What made 
this the more affecting: it appeared the Master 
had then run some peril of his life, for there was 
a cry — “ O, Jamie will be drowned — O, save 
Jamie ! ” which he came over and over with a great 
deal of passion. 

This, I say, was affecting, both to Mrs. Henry 
and myself; but the balance of my master’s wan- 
derings did him little justice. It seemed he had 
set out to justify his brother’s calumnies; as 
though he was bent to prove himself a man of 
a dry nature, immersed in money-getting. Had 
I been there alone, I would not have troubled my 


OF BALLANTRAE 181 

thumb; but all the while, as I listened, I was 
estimating the effect on the man’s wife, and tell- 
ing myself that he fell lower every day. I was 
the one person on the surface of the globe that 
comprehended him, and I was bound there should 
be yet another. Whether he was to die there and 
his virtues perish; or whether he should save his 
days and come back to that inheritance of sorrows, 
his right memory: I was bound he should be 
heartily lamented in the one case and unaffectedly 
welcomed in the other, by the person he loved the 
most, his wife. 

Finding no occasion of free speech, I bethought 
me at last of a kind of documentary disclosure; 
and for some nights, when I was off duty and 
should have been asleep, I gave my time to the 
preparation of that which I may call my budget. 
But this I found to be the easiest portion of my 
task, and that which remained, namely the pre- 
sentation to my lady, almost more than I had for- 
titude to overtake. Several days I went about 
with my papers under my arm, spying for some 
juncture of talk to serve as introduction. I will 
not deny but that some offered; only when they 
did, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth; 
and I think I might have been carrying about my 
packet till this day, had not a fortunate accident 
delivered me from all my hesitations. This was 


182 


THE MASTER 


at night, when I was once more leaving the room, 
the thing not yet done, and myself in despair at 
my own cowardice. 

“ What do you carry about with you, Mr. Mac- 
kellar ? ” she asked. “ These last days, I see you 
always coming in and out with the same armful.” 

I returned upon my steps without a word, laid 
the papers before her on the table, and left her to 
her reading. Of what that was, I am now to give 
you some idea; and the best will be to reproduce 
a letter of my own which came first in the budget 
and of which (according to an excellent habitude) 

I have preserved the scroll. It will show too the 
moderation of my part in these affairs, a thing 
which some have called recklessly in question. 

Durrisdeer. 

1757. 

Honoured Madam, — I trust I would not step out of 
my place without occasion; but I see how much evil has 
v flowed in the past to all of your noble house from that un- 
happy and secretive fault of reticency, and the papers on 
which I venture to call your attention are family papers and 
all highly worthy your acquaintance. 

I append a schedule with some necessary observations 
And am, 

Honoured Madam, 

Your ladyship’s obliged, obedient servant, 

Ephraim Mackellar. 

Schedule of Papers. 

A. Scroll of ten letters from Ephraim Mackellar to the 
Hon. James Durie, Esq., by courtesy Master of Ballantrae 


OF BALLANTRAE 183 

during the latter’s residence in Paris : under dates . . . 
( follow the dates') . . . Nota : to be read in connection with 

B. and C. 

B. Seven original letters from the said M r of Ballantrae 
to the said E. Mackellar, under dates . . . ( follow the dates). 

C. Three original letters from the said M r of Ballantrae 
to the Hon. Henry Durie, Esq., under dates . . . ( follow 
the dates) . . . Nota : given me by Mr. Henry to answer : 
copies of my answers A 4, A 5, and A 9 of these productions. 
The purport of Mr. Henry’s communications, of which I can 
find no scroll, may be gathered from those of his unnatural 
brother. 

D. A correspondence, original and scroll, extending over 

a period of three years till January of the current year, be- 
tween the said M r of Ballantrae and , Under Secre- 

tary of State ; twenty-seven in all. Nota : found among the 
Master’s papers. 

Weary as I was with watching and distress of 
mind, it was impossible for me to sleep. All night 
long, I walked in my chamber, revolving what 
should be the issue and sometimes repenting the 
temerity of my immixture in affairs so private ; 
and with the first peep of the morning, I was at 
the sick-room door. Mrs. Henry had thrown open 
the shutters and even the window, for the tem- 
perature was mild. She looked steadfastly before 
her; where was nothing to see, or only the blue 
of the morning creeping among the woods. Upon 
the stir of my entrance, she did not so much as 
turn about her face: a circumstance from which 
I augured very ill. 

“ Madam/' I began; and then again, “ Madam;” 


THE MASTER 


184 

but could make no more of it. Nor yet did Mrs. ! 
Henry come to my assistance with a word. In 
this pass I began gathering up the papers where 
they lay scattered on the table; and the first thing 
that struck me, their bulk appeared to have dimin- 
ished. Once I ran them through, and twice; but 
the correspondence with the secretary of state, on 
which I had reckoned so much against the future, 
was nowhere to be found. I looked in the chim- 
ney; amid the smouldering embers, black ashes 
of paper fluttered in the draught; and at that my 
timidity vanished. 

“ Good God, madam,” cried I, in a voice not 
fitting for a sick-room, “ Good God, madam, what 
have you done with my papers? ” 

“ I have burned them,” said Mrs. Henry, turn- 
ing about. “ It is enough, it is too much, that you 
and I have seen them.” 

“ This is a fine night’s work that you have 
done!” cried I. “ And all to save the reputation 
of a man that ate bread by the shedding of his 
comrades’ blood, as I do by the shedding ink.” 

“ To save the reputation of that family in which 
you are a servant, Mr. Mackellar,” she returned, 

“ and for which you have 'already done so much.” 

“ It is a family I will not serve much longer,” 

I cried, “ for I am driven desperate. You have 
stricken the sword out of my hands; you have 


OF BALLANTRAE 185 

1 left us all defenceless. I had always these letters 
| I could shake over his head; and now — what is 
to do? We are so falsely situate, we dare not 
show the man the door; the country would fly 
on fire against us; and I had this one hold upon 
him — and now it is gone — now he may come 
back to-morrow, and we must all sit down with 
him to dinner, go for a stroll with him on the 
terrace, or take a hand at cards, of all things, to 
divert his leisure ! No, madam ; God forgive you, 
if he can find it in his heart; for I cannot find it 
j in mine.” 

“ I wonder to find you so simple, Mr. Mac- 
kellar,” said Mrs. Henry. “ What does this man 
value reputation? But he knows how high we 
prize it ; he knows we would rather die than 
make these letters public; and do you suppose he 
would not trade upon the knowledge? What you 
call your sword, Mr. Mackellar, and which had 
been one indeed against a man of any remnant of 
propriety, would have been but a sword of paper 
against him. He would smile in your face at 
such a threat. He stands upon his degradation, 
he makes that his strength; it is in vain to strug- 
gle with such characters.” She cried out this last 
a little desperately, and then with more quiet: 
“ No, Mr. Mackellar, I have thought upon this 
matter all night, and there is no way out of it. 


THE MASTER 


1 86 

Papers or no papers, the door of this house stands 
open for him; he is the rightful heir, forsooth! 
If we sought to exclude him, all would redound 
against poor Henry, and I should see him stoned 
again upon the streets. Ah! if Henry dies, it is 
a different matter! They have broke the entail 
for their own good purposes; the estate goes to 
my daughter; and I shall see who sets a foot 
upon it. But if Henry lives, my poor Mr. Mac- 
kellar, and that man returns, we must suffer : only 
this time, it will be together.” 

On the whole, I was well pleased with Mrs. 
Henry’s attitude of mind; nor could I even deny 
there was some cogency in that which she ad- 
vanced about the papers. 

“ Let us say no more about it,” said I. “ I can 
only be sorry I trusted a lady with the originals, 
which was an unbusinesslike proceeding at the 
best. As for what I said of leaving the service 
of the family, it was spoken with the tongue only ; 
and you may set your mind at rest, I belong to 
Durrisdeer, Mrs. Henry, as if I had been born 
there.” 

I must do her the justice to say she seemed per- 
fectly relieved ; so that we began this morning, as 
we were to continue for so many years, on a proper 
ground of mutual indulgence and respect. 

The same day, which was certainly prededicate 


OF BALLANTRAE 187 

to joy, we observed the first signal of recovery 
in Mr. Henry; and about three of the following 
afternoon, he found his mind again, recognising 
me by name with the strongest evidences of affec- 
tion. Mrs. Henry was also in the room, at the 
bed-foot: but it did not appear that he observed 
her. And indeed (the fever being gone) he was 
so weak that he made but the one effort and sank 
again into a lethargy. The course of his restora- 
tion was now slow but equal ; every day, his 
appetite improved; every week, we were able to 
remark an increase both of strength and flesh; 
and before the end of the month, he was out of 
bed and had even begun to be carried in his chair 
upon the terrace. 

It was perhaps at this time that Mrs. Henry 
and I were the most uneasy in mind. Apprehen- 
sion for his days was at an end; and a worse 
fear succeeded. Every day we drew consciously 
nearer to a day of reckoning ; and the days passed 
on, and still there was nothing. Mr. Henry bet- 
tered in strength, he held long talks with us on 
a great diversity of subjects, his father came and 
sat with him and went again; and still there was 
no reference to the late tragedy or to the former 
troubles which had brought it on. Did he re- 
member, and conceal his dreadful knowledge? or 
was the whole blotted from his mind? this was 


1 8 8 


THE MASTER 


the problem that kept us watching and trembling 
all day when we were in his company, and held 
us awake at night when we were in our lonely 
beds. We knew not even which alternative to 
hope for, both appearing so unnatural and point- 
ing so directly to an unsound brain. Once this 
fear offered, I observed his conduct with sedulous 
particularity. Something of the child he exhibited : 
a cheerfulness quite foreign to his previous char- 
acter, an interest readily aroused, and then very 
tenacious, in small matters which he had hereto- 
fore despised. When he was stricken down, I 
was his only confidant, and I may say his only 
friend, and he was on terms of division with his 
wife ; upon his recovery, all was changed, the past 
forgotten, the wife first and even single in his 
thoughts. He turned to her with all his emotions 
like a child to its mother, and seemed secure of 
sympathy; called her in all his needs with some- 
thing of that querulous familiarity that marks a 
certainty of indulgence; and I must say, in justice 
to the woman, he was never disappointed. To 
her, indeed, this changed behaviour was inexpres- 
sibly affecting; and I think she felt it secretly as 
a reproach ; so that I have seen her, in early days, 
escape out of the room that she might indulge 
herself in weeping. But to me, the change ap- 
peared not natural; and viewing it along with 


OF BALLANTRAE 189 

all the rest, I began to wonder, with many head- 
shakings, whether his reason were perfectly erect. 

As this doubt stretched over many years, en- 
dured indeed until my master’s death, and clouded 
all our subsequent relations, I may well consider 
of it more at large. When he was able to resume 
some charge of his affairs, I had many oppor- 
tunities to try him with precision. There was no 
lack of understanding, nor yet of authority; but 
the f)ld continuous interest had quite departed; he 
grew readily fatigued and fell to yawning ; and he 
carried into money relations, where it is certainly 
out of place, a facility that bordered upon slack- 
ness. True, since we had no longer the exactions 
of the Master to contend against, there was the 
less occasion to raise strictness into principle or 
do battle for a farthing. True again, there was 
nothing excessive in these relaxations, or I would 
have been no party to them. But the whole thing 
marked a change, very slight yet very perceptible; 
and though no man could say my master had gone 
at all out of his mind, no man could deny that he 
had drifted from his character. It was the same to 
the end, with his manner and appearance. Some 
of the heat of the fever lingered in his veins : his 
movements a little hurried, his speech notably more 
voluble, yet neither truly amiss. His whole mind 
stood open to happy impressions, welcoming these 


THE MASTER 


190 

and making much of them; but the smallest sug- 
gestion of trouble or sorrow he received with visible 
impatience and dismissed again with immediate 
relief. It was to this temper that he owed the 
felicity of his later days; and yet here it was, if 
anywhere, that you could call the man insane. 
A great part of this life consists in contemplating 
what we cannot cure ; but Mr. Henry, if he could 
not dismiss solicitude by an effort of the mind, 
must instantly and at whatever cost annihilate the 
cause of it ; so that he played alternately the ostrich 
and the bull. It is to this strenuous cowardice of ! 
pain that I have to set down all the unfortunate 
and excessive steps of his subsequent career. Cer- 
tainly this was the reason of his beating McManus, 
the groom, a thing so much out of all his former 
practice and which awakened so much comment 
at the time. It is to this again, that I must lay 
the total loss of near upon two hundred pounds, 
more than the half of which I could have saved if 
his impatience would have suffered me. But he 
preferred loss or any desperate extreme to a con- 
tinuance of mental suffering. 

All this has led me far from our immediate 
trouble: whether he remembered or had forgot- 
ten his late dreadful act; and if he remembered, 
in what light he viewed it. The truth burst upon 
us suddenly, and was indeed one of the chief 


OF BALLANTRAE 


9 1 


surprises of my life. He had been several times 
abroad, and was now beginning to walk a little 
with an arm, when it chanced I should be left 
alone with him upon the terrace. He turned to 
me with a singular furtive smile, such as school- 
boys use when in fault; and says he, in a private 
whisper and without the least preface : “ Where 
have you buried him ? ” 

I could not make one sound in answer. 

“ Where have you buried him ? ” he repeated. 
“ I want to see his grave.” 

I conceived I had best take the bull by the horns. 
“ Mr. Henry,” said I, “ I have news to give that 
will rejoice you exceedingly. In all human like- 
lihood, your hands are clear of blood. I reason 
from certain indices ; and by these it should appear 
your brother was not dead, but was carried in a 
swound on board the lugger. By now, he may be 
perfectly recovered.” 

What there was in his countenance, I could not 
read. “ James ? ” he asked. 

“ Your brother James,” I answered. “ I would 
not raise a hope that may be found deceptive; but 
in my heart, I think it very probable he is alive.” 

“ Ah ! ” says Mr. Henry ; and suddenly rising 
from his seat with more alacrity than he had yet 
discovered, set one finger on my breast, and cried 
at me in a kind of screaming whisper, “ Mackel- 


THE MASTER 


192 

lar ” — these were his words — “ nothing can kill 
that man. He is not mortal. He is bound upon 
my back to all eternity — to all God’s eternity!” 
says he, and, sitting down again, fell upon a stub- 
born silence. 

A day or two after, with the same secret smile, 
and first looking about as if to be sure we were 
alone, “ Mackellar,” said he, “ when you have 
any intelligence, be sure and let me know. We 
must keep an eye upon him, or he will take us 
when we least expect.” 

“ He will not show face here again,” said I. 

“ O yes, he will, v said Mr. Henry. “ Wherever 
I am there will he be.” And again he looked all 
about him. 

“ You must not dwell upon this thought, Mr. 
Henry,” said I. 

“ No,” said he, “ that is a very good advice. 
We will never think of it, except when you have 
news. And we do not know yet,” he added : “ he 
may be dead.” 

The manner of his saying this convinced me 
thoroughly of what I had scarce ventured to sus- 
pect: that so far from suffering any penitence 
for the attempt, he did but lament his failure. 
This was a discovery I kept to myself, fearing it 
might do him a prejudice with his wife. But I 
might have saved myself the trouble; she had 


OF BALLANTRAE 


l 93 

divined it for herself, and found the sentiment 
quite natural. Indeed I could not but say that 
there were three of us all of the same mind; nor 
could any news have reached Durrisdeer more 
generally welcome than tidings of the Master’s 
death. 

This brings me to speak of the exception, my 
old lord. As soon as my anxiety for my own 
master began to be relaxed, I was aware of a 
change in the old gentleman, his father, that 
seemed to threaten mortal consequences. 

His face was pale and swollen; as he sat in 
the chimney-side with his Latin, he would drop off 
sleeping and the book roll in the ashes; some days 
he would drag his foot, others stumble in speak- 
ing. The amenity of his behaviour appeared more 
extreme ; full of excuses for the least trouble, very 
thoughtful for all; to myself, of a most flattering 
civility. One day, that he had sent for his lawyer 
and remained a long while private, he met me 
as he was crossing the hall with painful footsteps, 
and took me kindly by the hand. “ Mr. Mackel- 
lar,” said he, “ I have had many occasions to set 
a proper value on your services ; and to-day, when 
I recast my will, I have taken the freedom to name 
you for one of my executors. I believe you bear 
love enough to our house to render me this ser- 
vice.” At that very time, he passed the greater 
*3 


THE MASTER 


194 

portion of his days in slumber, from which it 
was often difficult to rouse him; seemed to have 
lost all count of years and had several times (par- 
ticularly on waking) called for his wife and for 
an old servant whose very gravestone was now 
^ green with moss. If I had been put to my oath, 
I must have declared he was incapable of testing; 
and yet there was never a will drawn more sen- 
sible in every trait, or showing a more excellent 
judgment both of persons and affairs. 

His dissolution, though it took not very long, 
proceeded by infinitesimal gradations. His fac- 
ulties decayed together steadily; the power of his 
limbs was almost gone, he was extremely deaf, 
his speech had sunk into mere mumblings ; and yet 
to the end he managed to discover something of 
his former courtesy and kindness, pressing the 
hand of any that helped him, presenting me with 
one of his Latin books in which he had laboriously 
traced my name, and in a thousand ways reminding 
us of the greatness of that loss, which it might 
almost be said we had already suffered. To the 
end, the power of articulation returned to him 
in flashes : it seemed he had only forgotten the 
art of speech as a child forgets his lesson, and at 
times he would call some part of it to mind. On 
the last night of his life, he suddenly broke si- 
lence with these words from Virgil : “ Gnatique 


OF BALLANTRAE 


l 9S 


ipatrisque, alma, precor, miserere,” perfectly ut- 
tered and with a fitting accent. At the sudden 
clear sound of it, we started from our several 
occupations; but it was in vain we turned to him; 
he sat there silent and to all appearance fatuous. 
A little later, he was had to bed with more diffi- 
culty than ever before ; and some time in the 
night, without any mortal violence, his spirit fled. 

At a far later period, I chanced to speak of 
these particulars with a doctor of medicine, a man 
of so high a reputation that I scruple to adduce 
[ his name. By his view of it, father and son both 
| suffered from the same affection: the father from 
the strain of his unnatural sorrows, the son per- 
haps in the excitation of the fever, each had rup- 
tured a vessel on the brain ; and there was probably 
(my doctor added) some predisposition in the 
family to accidents of that description. The father 
sank, the son recovered all the externals of a 
healthy man ; but it is like there was some destruc- 
tion in those delicate tissues where the soul resides 
and does her earthly business; her heavenly, I 
would fain hope, cannot be thus obstructed by 
material accidents. And yet upon a more mature 
opinion, it matters not one jot; for He who shall 
pass judgment on the records of our life is the 
same that formed us in frailty. 

The death of my old lord was the occasion of 


196 THE MASTER 

a fresh surprise to us who watched the behaviour 
of his successor. To any considering mind, the 
two sons had between them slain their father; and 
he who took the sword might be even said to have 
slain him with his hand. But no such thought 
appeared to trouble my new lord. He was be- 
comingly grave; I could scarce say sorrowful, or 
only with a pleasant sorrow; talking of the dead 
with a regretful cheerfulness, relating old exam- 
ples of his character, smiling at them with a good 
conscience; and when the day of the funeral came 
round, doing the honours with exact propriety. 
I could perceive besides, that he found a solid 
gratification in his accession to the title ; the which 
he was punctilious in exacting. 

And now there came upon the scene a liew 
character, and one that played his part too in the 
story; I mean the present lord, Alexander, whose 
birth (17th July, 1757) filled the cup of my poor 
master’s happiness. There was nothing then left 
him to wish for; nor yet leisure to wish for it. 
Indeed there never was a parent so fond and dot- 
ing as he showed himself. He was continually 
uneasy in his son’s absence. Was the child abroad ? 
the father would be watching the clouds in case 
it rained. Was it night? he would rise out of 
his bed to observe its slumbers. His conversation 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


*97 


grew even wearyful to strangers, since he talked 
of little but his son. In matters relating to the 
estate, all was designed with a particular eye to 
Alexander ; and it would be : — “ Let us put it 
in hand at once, that the wood may be grown 
against Alexander’s majority;” or “this will fall 
in again handsomely for Alexander’s marriage.” 
Every day this absorption of the man’s nature 
became more observable, with many touching and 
some very blameworthy particulars. Soon the 
child could walk abroad with him, at first on the 
terrace hand in hand, and afterward at large about 
the policies; and this grew to be my lord’s chief 
occupation. The sound of their two voices (audible 
a great way off, for they spoke loud) became fa- 
miliar in the neighbourhood; and for my part I 
found it more agreeable than the sound of birds. 
It was pretty to see the pair returning, full of 
briers, and the father as flushed and sometimes 
as bemuddied as the child : for they were equal 
sharers in all sorts of boyish entertainment, 
digging in the beach, damming of streams, 
and what not ; and I have seen them gaze 
through a fence at cattle with the same childish 
contemplation. 

The mention of these rambles brings me to a 
strange scene of which I was a witness. There 
was one walk I never followed myself without 


THE MASTER 


198 

emotion, so often had I gone there upon miserable 
errands, so much had there befallen against the 
house of Durrisdeer. But the path lay handy 
from all points beyond the Muckleross; and I 
was driven, although much against my will, to 
take my use of it perhaps once in the two months. 
It befell when Mr. Alexander was of the age of 
seven or eight, I had some business on the far 
side in the morning, and entered the shrubbery on 
my homeward way, about nine of a bright fore- 
noon. It was that time of year when the woods 
are all in their spring colours, the thorns all in 
flower, and the birds in the high season of 
their singing. In contrast to this merriment, the 
shrubbery was only the more sad and I the 
more oppressed by its associations. In this situa- 
tion of spirit, it struck me disagreeably to hear 
voices a little way in front, and to recognise 
the tones of my lord and Mr. Alexander. I 
pushed ahead, and came presently into their view. 
They stood together in the open space where 
the duel was, my lord with his hand on his 
son’s shoulder and speaking with some gravity. 
At least, as he raised his head upon my coming, 
I thought I could perceive his countenance to 
lighten. 

“ Ah,” says he, “ here comes the good Mackel- 
lar. I have just been telling Sandie the story of 


OF BALLANTRAE 


1 99 

this place, and how there was a man whom the 
devil tried to kill, and how near he came to kill 
the devil instead.” 

I had thought it strange enough he should bring 
the child into that scene; that he should actually 
be discoursing of his act, passed measure. But 
the worst was yet to come; for he added, turning 
to his son: “ You can ask Mackellar; he was here 
and saw it.” 

“ Is it true, Mr. Mackellar?” asked the child. 
“ And did you really see the devil ? ” 

“ I have not heard the tale,” I replied ; “ and I 
am in a press of business.” So far I said a little 
sourly, fencing with the embarrassment of the 
position; and suddenly the bitterness of the past 
and the terror of that scene by candlelight rushed 
in upon my mind ; I bethought me that, for a dif- 
ference of a second’s quickness in parade, the child 
before me might have never seen the day; and the 
emotion that always fluttered round my heart in 
that dark shrubbery burst forth in words. “ But 
so much is true,” I cried, “ that I have met the 
devil in these woods and seen him foiled here; 
blessed be God that we escaped with life — blessed’ 
be God that one stone yet stands upon another in 
the walls of Durrisdeer! and O, Mr. Alexander, 
if ever you come by this spot, though it was a 
hundred years hence and you came with the gay- 


200 


THE MASTER 


est and the highest in the land, I would step aside 
and remember a bit prayer. 1 ' 

My lord bowed his head gravely. “ Ah,” says 
he, “ Mackellar is always in the right. Come, 
Alexander, take your bonnet off.” And with that 
he uncovered and held out his hand. “ O Lord,” 
said he, “ I thank thee, and my son thanks thee, 
for thy manifold great mercies. Let us have peace 
for a little; defend us from the evil man. Smite 
him, O Lord, upon the lying mouth ! ” » The 
last broke out of him like a cry; and at that, 
whether remembered anger choked his utterance, 
or whether he perceived this was a singular sort 
of prayer, at least he came suddenly to a full 
stop; and after a moment, set back his hat upon 
his head. 

“ I think you have forgot a word, my lord,” 
said I. “ Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
them that trespass against us. For thine is the 
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever 
and ever. Amen.” 

“ Ah, that is easy saying,” said my lord. “ That 
is very easy saying, Mackellar. But for me to for- 
give? — I think I would cut a very silly figure, if 
I had the affectation to pretend it.” 

“ The bairn, my lord,” said I with some sever- 
ity, for I thought his expressions little fitted for 
the ears of children. 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


201 


“ Why, very true,” said he. “ This is dull work 
for a bairn. Let ’s go nesting.” 

I forget if it was the same day, but it was soon 
after, my lord, finding me alone, opened himself 
! a little more on the same head. 

“ Mackellar,” he said, “ I am now a very happy 
man.” 

“ I think so indeed, my lord,” said I, “ and the 
; sight of it gives me a light heart.” 

“ There is an obligation in happiness, do you not 
think so ? ” says he, musingly. 

“ I think so indeed,” says I, “ and one in sorrow 
too. If we are not here to try to do the best, in 
my humble opinion, the sooner we are away the 
better for all parties.” 

“ Ay, but if you were in my shoes, would you 
forgive him ? ” asks my lord. 

The suddenness of the attack a little gravelled 
me. “ It is a duty laid upon us strictly,” said I. 

“ Hut ! ” said he. “ These are expressions ! 
Do you forgive the man yourself?” 

“ Well — no ! ” said I. “ God forgive me, I 
do not.” 

“ Shake hands upon that ! ” cries my lord, with 
a kind of jovialty. 

“ It is an ill sentiment to shake hands upon,” 
said I, “ for Christian people. I think I will give 
you mine on some more evangelical occasion.” 


202 


THE MASTER 


This I said smiling a little; but as for my lord, 
he went from the room laughing aloud. 

For my lord’s slavery to the child, I can find 
no expression adequate. He lost himself in that 
continual thought : business, friends and wife being 
all alike forgotten or only remembered with a pain- 
ful effort, like that of one struggling with a posset. 
It was most notable in the matter of his wife. 
Since I had known Durrisdeer, she had been the 
burthen of his thought and the loadstone of his 
eyes; and now, she was quite cast out. I have 
seen him come to the door of a room, look round, 
and pass my lady over as though she were a dog 
before the fire : — it would be Alexander he was 
seeking, and my lady knew it well. I have heard 
him speak to her so ruggedly, that I nearly found 
it in my heart to intervene: the cause would still 
be the same, that she had in some way thwarted 
Alexander. Without doubt this was in the nature 
of a judgment on my lady. Without doubt she had 
the tables turned upon her as only Providence can 
do it; she who had been cold so many years to 
every mark of tenderness, it was her part now to 
be neglected : the more praise to her that she played 
it well. 

An odd situation resulted: that we had once 
more two parties in the house, and that now I 


OF BALLANTR 4 E 203 

was of my lady’s. Not that ever I lost the love 
I bore my master. But for one thing, he had the 
less use for my society. For another, I could not 
I but compare the case of Mr. Alexander with that 
; of Miss Katharine; for whom my lord had never 
found the least attention. And for a third, I was 
I wounded by the change he discovered to his wife, 

| which struck me in the nature of an infidelity. I 
I could not but admire besides the constancy and 
kindness she displayed. Perhaps her sentiment to 
! my lord, as it had been founded from the first in 
j pity, was that rather of a mother than a wife; 

| perhaps it pleased her (if I may so say) to behold 
her two children so happy in each other : the more 
as one had suffered so unjustly in the past. But 
for all that, and though I could never trace in her 
one spark of jealousy, she must fall back for so- 
ciety on poor, neglected Miss Katharine; and I, 
on my part, came to pass my spare hours more and 
more with the mother and daughter. It would 
be easy to make too much of this division, for it 
was a pleasant family as families go ; still the thing 
existed; whether my lord knew it or not, I am in 
doubt, I do not think he did, he was bound up so 
entirely in his son ; but the rest of us knew it and 
(in a manner) suffered from the knowledge. 

What troubled us most, however, was the great 
and growing danger to the child. My lord was 


204 


THE MASTER 


his father over again; it was to be feared the 
son would prove a second Master. Time has 
proved these fears to have been quite exaggerate. 
Certainly there is no more worthy gentleman to- 
day in Scotland than the seventh Lord Durrisdeer. 
Of my own exodus from his employment, it does 
not become me to speak, above all in a memo- 
randum written only to justify his father. . . . 

[Editor’s Note. Five pages of Mr. Mackellar’s 
MS. are here omitted. I have gathered from their 
perusal an impression that Mr. Mackellar, in his 
old age , was rather an exacting servant. Against 
the seventh Lord Durrisdeer ( with whom at any 
rate we have no concern) nothing material is al- 
leged.— R. L. S'.] 

. . . But our fear at the time was lest he should 
turn out, in the person of his son, a second edition 
of his brother. My lady had tried to interject 
some wholesome discipline; she had been glad to 
give that up, and now looked on with secret dis- 
may ; sometimes she even spoke of it by hints ; and 
sometimes when there was brought to her knowl- 
edge some monstrous instance of my lord’s indul- 
gence, she would betray herself in a gesture or 
perhaps an exclamation. As for myself, I was 
haunted by the thought both day and night: not 
so much for the child’s sake as for the father’s. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


20 ] 

The man had gone to sleep, he was dreaming a 
dream, and any rough wakening must infallibly 
prove mortal. That he should survive its death 
was inconceivable; and the fear of its dishonour 
made me cover my face. 

It was this continual preoccupation that screwed 
me up at last to a remonstrance: a matter worthy 
to be narrated in detail. My lord and I sat one 
day at the same table upon some tedious business 
of detail; I have said that he had lost his former 
interest in such occupations; he was plainly itch- 
ing to be gone, and he looked fretful, weary and 
methought older than I had ever previously ob- 
served. I suppose it was the haggard face that 
put me suddenly upon my enterprise. 

“ My lord,” said I, with my head down, and 
feigning to continue my occupation — “ or rather 
let me call you again by the name of Mr. Henry, 
for I fear your anger and want you to think 
upon old times ” 

“ My good Mackellar ! ” said he ; and that in 
tones so kindly that I had near forsook my pur- 
pose. But I called to mind that I was speaking 
for his good, and stuck to my colours. 

“ Has it never come in upon your mind what 
you are doing?” I asked. 

“What I am doing?” he repeated, “I was 
never good guessing riddles.” 


20 6 


THE MASTER 


“ What you are doing with your son,” said I. 

“ Well,” said he, with some defiance in his 
tone, “and what am I doing with my son?” 

“ Your father was a very good man,” says I, 
straying from the direct path. “ But do you 
think he was a wise father ? ” 

There was a pause before he spoke, and then: 
“ I say nothing against him,” he replied. “ I had 
the most cause perhaps; but I say nothing.” 

“ Why, there it is,” said I. “ You had the 
cause at least. And yet your father was a good 
man ; I never knew a better, save on the one 
point, nor yet a wiser. Where he stumbled, it 
is highly possible another man should fall. He 
had the two sons ” 

My lord rapped suddenly and violently on the 
table. 

“What is this?” cried he. “Speak out!” 

“ I will, then,” said I, my voice almost strangled 
with the thumping of my heart. “If you con- 
tinue to' indulge Mr. Alexander, you are follow- 
ing in your father’s footsteps : Beware, my lord, 
lest (when he grows up) your son should follow 
in the Master’s.” 

I had never meant to put the thing so crudely; 
but in the extreme of fear, there comes a brutal 
kind of courage, the most brutal indeed of all; 
and I burnt my ships with that plain word. I 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


207 


never had the answer. When I lifted my head, 
my lord had risen to his feet, and the next mo- 
ment he fell heavily on the floor. The fit or 
seizure endured not very long ; he came to him- 
self vacantly, put his hand to his head, which I 
was then supporting, and says he, in a broken 
voice: “ I have been ill/’ and a little after: 
“ Help me.” I got him to his feet, and he stood 
pretty well, though he kept hold of the table. 
“ I have been ill, Mackellar,” he said again. 
“ Something broke, Mackellar — or was going to 
break, and then all swam away. I think I was 
very angry. Never you mind, Mackellar, never 
you mind, my man. I wouldnae hurt a hair 
upon your head. Too much has come and gone. 
It ’s a certain thing between us two. But I think, 
Mackellar, I will go to Mrs. Henry — I think I 
will go to Mrs. Henry,” said he, and got pretty 
steadily from the room, leaving me overcome 
with penitence. 

Presently the door flew open, and my lady 
swept in with flashing eyes. “ What is all this ? ” 
she cried. “ What have you done to my hus- 
band? Will nothing teach you your position in 
this house? Will you never cease from making 
and meddling? ” 

“ My lady,” said I, “ since I have been in this 
house, I have had plenty of hard words. For 


208 


THE MASTER 


awhile they were my daily diet, and I swallowed 
them all. As for to-day, you may call me what 
you please; you will never find the name hard 
enough for such a blunder. And yet I meant it 
for the best.” 

I told her all with ingenuity, even as it is 
written here; and when she had heard me out, 
she pondered, and I could see her animosity fall. 
“ Yes,” she said, “ you meant well indeed. I 
have had the same thought myself, or the same 
temptation rather, which makes me pardon you. 
But, dear God, can you not understand that he 
can bear no more? He can bear no more!” she 
cried. “ The cord is stretched to snapping. What 
matters the future, if he have one or two good 
days?” 

“ Amen,” said I. “ I will meddle no more. I 
am pleased enough that you should recognise the 
kindness of my meaning.” 

“ Yes,” said my lady, “ but when it came to 
the point, I have to suppose your courage failed 
you; for what you said was said cruelly.” She 
paused, looking at me; then suddenly smiled a 
little, and said a singular thing : “ Do you know 
what you are, Mr. Mackellar? You are an old 
maid.” 

No more incident of any note occurred in the 
family until the return of that ill-starred man, 


OF BALLANTRAE 


209 


the Master. But I have to place here a second 
'extract from the memoirs of Chevalier Burke, 
interesting in itself and highly necessary for my 
purpose. It is our only sight of the Master on 
his Indian travels; and the first word in these 
pages of Secundra Dass. One fact, it is to ob- 
serve, appears here very clearly, which if we had 
known , some twenty years ago, how many calam- 
ities and sorrows had been spared! — that Se- 
cundra Dass spoke English. 


210 


THE MASTER 


ADVENTURE OF CHEVALIER 
BURKE IN INDIA 

Extracted from his Memoirs . 

H ERE was I, therefore, on the streets of 
that city, the name of which I cannot 
call to mind, while even then I was so 
ill acquainted with its situation that I knew not 
whether to go south or north. The alert being 
sudden, I had run forth without shoes or stock- 
ings; my hat had been struck from my head in 
the mellay; my kit was in the hands of the Eng- 
lish ; I had no companion but the cipaye, no weapon 
but my sword, and the devil a coin in my pocket. 
In short I was for all the world like one of those 
calenders with whom Mr. Galland has made us 
acquainted in his elegant tales. These gentlemen, 
you will remember, were for ever falling in with 
extraordinary incidents ; and I was myself upon 
the brink of one so astonishing that I protest I 
cannot explain it to this day. 

The cipaye was a very honest man, he had 
served many years with the French colours, and 
would have let himself be cut to pieces for any of 


OF BALLANTRAE 


21 I 


the brave countrymen of Mr. Lally. It is the 
same fellow (his name has quite escaped me) 
of whom I have narrated already a surprising 
instance of generosity of mind: when he found 
Mr. de Fessac and myself upon the ramparts, en- 
tirely overcome with liquor, and covered us with 
straw while the commandant was passing by. I 
consulted him therefore with perfect freedom. 
It was a fine question what to do; but we decided 
at last to escalade a garden wall, where we could 
certainly sleep in the shadow of the trees, and 
might perhaps find an occasion to get hold of a 
pair of slippers and a turban. In that part of the 
city we had only the difficulty of the choice, for 
it was a quarter consisting entirely of walled 
gardens, and the lanes which divided them were 
at that hour of the night deserted. I gave the 
cipaye a back, and we had soon dropped into a 
large enclosure full of trees. The place was 
soaking with the dew which, in that country, is 
exceedingly unwholesome, above all to whites; yet 
my fatigue was so extreme that I was already 
half asleep, when the cipaye recalled me to my 
senses. In the far end of the enclosure a bright 
light had suddenly shone out, and continued to 
burn steadily among the leaves. It was a circum- 
stance highly unusual in such a place and hour; 
and in our situation, it behoved us to proceed with 


212 


THE MASTER 


some timidity. The cipaye was sent to recon- 
noitre, and pretty soon returned with the intelli- J 
gence that we had fallen extremely amiss, for the ; 
house belonged to a white man who was in all 
likelihood English. 

“ Faith,” says I, “ if there is a white man to 
be seen, I will have a look at him; for the Lord 
be praised! there are more sorts than the one!” 

The cipaye led me forward accordingly to a 
place from which I had a clear view upon the 
house. It was surrounded with a wide verandah ; 
a lamp, very well trimmed, stood upon the floor 
of it; and on either side of the lamp there sat 
a man, cross-legged after the oriental manner. 
Both, besides, were bundled up in muslin like two 
natives ; and yet one of them was not only a white 
man, but a man very well known to me and the 
reader: being indeed that very Master of Ballan- 
trae of whose gallantry and genius I have had to 
speak so often. Word had reached me that he 
was come to the Indies ; though we had never met 
at least and I heard little of his occupations. 
But sure, I had no sooner recognised him, and 
found myself in the arms of so old a comrade, 
than I supposed my tribulations were quite done. 

I stepped plainly forth into the light of the moon, 
which shone exceeding strong, and hailing Bal- 
lantrae by name, made him in a few words master 


OF BALLANTRAE 


21 3 


of my grievous situation. He turned, started the 
least thing in the world, looked me fair in the 
face while I was speaking, and when I had done, 
addressed himself to his companion in the bar- 
barous native dialect. The second person, who 
was of an extraordinary delicate appearance, with 
legs like walking canes and fingers like the stalk 
of a tobacco pipe 1 now rose to his feet. 

“ The Sahib,” says he, “ understands no Eng- 
lish language. I understand it myself, and I see 
you make some small mistake — O, which may 
happen very often! But the Sahib would be glad 
to know how you come in a garden.” 

“ Ballantrae ! ” I cried. “ Have you the damned 
impudence to deny me to my face ? ” 

Ballantrae never moved a muscle, staring at 
me like an image in a pagoda. 

“ The Sahib understands no English language,” 
says the native, as glib as before. “ He be glad 
to know how you come in a garden.” 

“ O, the divil fetch him ! ” says I. “ He would 
be glad to know how I come in a garden, would 
he? Well now, my dear man, just have the ci- 
vility to tell the Sahib, with my kind love, that we 
are two soldiers here whom he never met and 
never heard of, but the cipaye is a broth of a boy, 
and I am a broth of a boy myself ; and if we don’t 

1 Note by Mr. Mackellar. Plainly Secundra Dass. — E. McK. 


214 


THE MASTER 


get a full meal of meat, and a turban, and slip- 
pers, and the value of a gold mohur in small 
change as a matter of convenience, bedad, my 
friend, I could lay my finger on a garden where 
there is going to be trouble.” 

They carried their comedy so far as to con- 
verse awhile in Hindustanee; and then, says the 
Hindu, with the same smile, but sighing as if he 
were tired of the repetition. “ The Sahib would 
be glad to know how you come in a garden.” 

“ Is that the way of it ? ” says I, and laying my 
hand on my sword-hilt, I bade the cipaye draw. 

Ballantrae’s Hindu, still smiling, pulled out a 
pistol from his bosom, and though Ballantrae 
himself never moved a muscle, I knew him well 
enough to be sure he was prepared. 

“ The Sahib thinks you better go away,” says 
the Hindu. 

Well, to be plain, it was what I was thinking 
myself ; for the report of a pistol would have been, 
under Providence, the means of hanging the pair 
of us. 

“ Tell the Sahib, I consider him no gentleman,” 
says I, and turned away with a gesture of con- 
tempt. 

I was not gone three steps when the voice of 
the Hindu called me back. “The Sahib would 
be glad to know if you are a dam, low Irishman/* 


OF BALLANTRAE 21 j 

says he; and at the words Ballantrae smiled and 
bowed very low. 

“ What is that ? ” says I. 

“ The Sahib say you ask your friend Mackel- 
lar,” says the Hindu. “ The Sahib he cry quits.” 

“ Tell the Sahib I will give him a cure for the 
Scots fiddle when next we meet,” cried I. 

The pair were still smiling as I left. 

There is little doubt some flaws may be picked 
in my own behaviour; and when a man, however 
gallant, appeals to posterity with an account of 
his exploits, he must almost certainly expect to 
share the fate of Caesar and Alexander, and to 
meet with some detractors. But there is one 
thing that can never be laid at the door of Francis 
Burke : he never turned his back on a friend. . . . 

(Here follows a passage which the Chevalier 
Burke has been at the pains to delete before send- 
ing me his manuscript. Doubtless it was some 
very natural complaint of what he supposed to 
be an indiscretion on my part; though, indeed, I 
can call none to mind. Perhaps Mr. Henry was 
less guarded; or it is just possible the Master 
found the means to examine my correspondence, 
and himself read the letter from Troyes: in re- 
venge for which this cruel jest was perpetrated on 
Mr. Burke in his extreme necessity. The Master, 
for all his wickedness, was not without some 


21 6 


THE MASTER 


natural affection; I believe he was sincerely at- 
tached to Mr. Burke in the beginning; but the 
thought of treachery dried up the springs of his 
very shallow friendship, and his detestable nature 
appeared naked. — E. McK. ) 


OF BALLANTRAE 


217 


THE ENEMY IN THE HOUSE 

I T is a strange thing that I should be at a 
stick for a date, — the date, besides, of an 
incident that changed the very nature of my 
life, and sent us all into foreign lands. But the 
truth is I was stricken out of all my habitudes, 
and find my journals very ill redd-up, 1 the day 
not indicated sometimes for a week or two to- 
gether, and the whole fashion of the thing like 
that of a man near desperate. It was late in 
March at least, or early in April, 1764. I had 
slept heavily and wakened with a premonition of 
some evil to befall. So strong was this upon my 
spirit, that I hurried down-stairs in my shirt and 
breeches, and my hand (I remember) shook upon 
the rail. It was a cold, sunny morning with a 
thick white frost; the blackbirds sang exceeding 
sweet and loud about the house of Durrisdeer,- 
and there was a noise of the sea in all the 
chambers. As I came by the doors of the hall, 
another sound arrested me, of voices talking. I 
drew nearer and stood like a man dreaming. Here 


1 Ordered. 


THE MASTER 


218 

was certainly a human voice, and that in my own 
master’s house, and yet I knew it not; certainly 
human speech, and that in my native land; and 
yet listen as I pleased, I could not catch one syl- 
lable. An old tale started up in my mind of a 
fairy wife (or perhaps only a wandering stranger), 
that came to the place of my fathers some gen- 
erations back, and stayed the matter of a week, 
talking often in a tongue that signified nothing 
to the hearers; and went again as she had come, 
under cloud of night, leaving not so much as a 
name behind her. A little fear I had, but more 
curiosity ; and I opened the hall door, and entered. 

The supper things still lay upon the table; the 
shutters were still closed, although day peeped in 
the divisions; and the great room was lighted 
only with a single taper and some lurching rever- 
beration of the fire. Close in the chimney sat two 
men. The one that was wrapped in a cloak and 
wore boots, I knew at once : it was the bird of ill 
omen back again. Of the other, who was set close 
to the red embers, and made up into a bundle like 
a mummy, I could but see that he was an alien, 
of a darker hue than any man of Europe, very 
frailly built, with a singular tall forehead, and a 
secret eye. Several bundles and a small valise 
were on the floor; and to judge by the smallness 
of this luggage, and by the condition of the 


OF BALLANTRAE 219 

Master's boots, grossly patched by some unscru- 
pulous country cobbler, evil had not prospered. 

He rose upon my entrance; our eyes crossed; 
and I know not why it should have been, but my 
courage rose like a lark on a May morning. 

“Ha!" said I, “is this you?" — and I was 
pleased with the unconcern of my own voice. 

“ It is even myself, worthy Mackellar," says the 
Master. 

“ This time you have brought the black dog 
visibly upon your back," I continued. 

“ Referring to Secundra Dass ? " asked the 
Master. “ Let me present you. He is a native 
gentleman of India." 

“ Hum ! " said I. “ I am no great lover either 
of you or your friends, Mr. Bally. But I will let 
a little daylight in and have a look at you." And 
so saying, I undid the shutters of the eastern 
window. 

By the light of the morning, I could perceive 
the man was changed. Later, when we were all 
together, I was more struck to see how lightly 
time had dealt with him ; but the first glance was 
otherwise. 

“ You are getting an old man," said I. 

A shade came upon his face. “If you could 
see yourself," said he, “ you would perhaps not 
dwell upon the topic.” 


220 


THE MASTER 


“ Hut ! ” I returned, “ old age is nothing to me. 
I think I have been always old; and I am now, 
I thank God, better known and more respected. 
It is not every one that can say that, MrV Bally! 
The lines in your brow are calamities-; yqur life 
begins to close in upon you like a prison;’ death 
will soon be rapping at the door ; and I see 
not from what source you are to draw your 
consolations.” 

Here the Master addressed himself to Secundra 
Dass in Hindustanee; from which I gathered (I 
freely confess, with a high degree of pleasure) 
that my remarks annoyed him. All this while, 
you may be sure, my mind had been busy upon 
other matters even while I rallied my enemy; and 
chiefly as to how I should communicate secretly 
and quickly with my lord. To this, in the breath- 
ing-space now given me, I turned all the forces 
of my mind; when, suddenly shifting my eyes, 
I was aware of the man himself standing in the 
doorway, and to all appearance quite composed. 
He had no sooner met my looks than he stepped 
across the threshold. The Master heard him com- 
ing, and advanced upon the other side; about 
four feet apart, these brothers came to a full 
pause and stood exchanging steady looks and 
then my lord smiled, bowed a little forward, and 
turned briskly away. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


221 


“ Mackellar,” says he, “ we must see to break- 
fast for these travellers.” 

It was plain the Master was a trifle discon- 
certed; -but he assumed the more impudence of 
: speech ‘and • manner. “ I am as hungry as a 
hawk,* says he. “ Let it be something good, 
Henry.” 

My lord turned to him with the same hard smile. 
“ Lord Durrisdeer,” says he. 

“ Oh, never in the family! ” returned the Master. 

“ Every one in this house renders me my proper 
title,” says my lord. “ If it please you to make 
i an exception, I will leave you to consider what 
appearance it will bear to strangers, and whether 
it may not be translated as an effect of impotent 
jealousy.” 

I could have clapped my hands together with 
delight: the more so as my lord left no time for 
any answer, but, bidding me with a sign to follow 
him, went straight out of the hall. 

“ Come quick,” says he, “ we have to sweep 
vermin from the house.” And he sped through 
the passages with so swift a step that I could 
scarce keep up with him, straight to the door of 
John Paul, the which he opened without summons 
and walked in. John was to all appearance sound 
asleep, but my lord made no pretence of waking 
him. 


222 


THE MASTER 


“John Paul/’ said he, speaking as quietly as 
ever I heard him, “ you served my father long, or 
I would pack you from the house like a dog. If 
in half an hour’s time I find you gone, you shall 
continue to receive your wages in Edinburgh. If 
you linger here or in St. Bride’s — old man, old 
servant, and altogether — I shall find some very 
astonishing way to make you smart for your 
disloyalty. Up, and begone. The door you let 
them in by will serve for your departure. I 
do not choose my son shall see your face 
again.” 

“I am rejoiced to find you bear the thing so 
quietly,” said I, when we were forth again by 
ourselves. 

“ Quietly ! ” cries he, and put my hand suddenly 
against his heart, which struck upon his bosom like 
a sledge. 

At this revelation I was filled with wonder and 
fear. There was no constitution could bear so vio- 
lent a strain — his least of all, that was unhinged 
already; and I decided in my mind that we must 
bring this monstrous situation to an end. 

“ It would be well, I think, if I took word to 
my lady,” said I. Indeed, he should have gone 
himself, but I counted (not in vain) on his 
indifference. 

“ Aye,” says he, “ do. I will hurry breakfast : 


OF BALLANTRAE 223 

we must all appear at the table, even Alexander; 
it must appear we are untroubled/' 

I ran to my lady’s room, and, with no prepara- 
tory cruelty, disclosed my news. 

“ My mind was long ago made up,” said she. 
“ We must make our packets secretly to-day, and 
leave secretly to-night. Thank Heaven, we have 
another house ! The first ship that sails shall bear 
us to New York.” 

“ And what of him ? ” I asked. 

“ We leave him Durrisdeer,” she cried. “ Let 
him work his pleasure upon that.” 

“ Not so, by your leave,” said I. “ There shall 
be a dog at his heels that can hold fast. Bed he 
shall have, and board, and a horse to ride upon, 

| if he behave himself; but the keys (if you think 
well of it, my lady) shall be left in the hands of 
one Mackellar. There will be good care taken; 
trust him for that.” 

“ Mr. Mackellar,” she cried, “ I thank you for 
that thought! All shall be left in your hands. If 
we must go into a savage country, I bequeath it to 
you to take our vengeance. Send Macconochie 
to St. Bride’s, to arrange privately for horses 
and to call the lawyer. My lord must leave 
procuration.” 

At that moment my lord came to the door, and 
we opened our plan to him. 


224 


THE MASTER 


“ I will never hear of it,” he cried ; “ he would 
think I feared him. I will stay in my own ht^tse, 
please God, until I die. There lives not the than 
can beard me out of it. Once and for all, here I 
am and here I stay, in spite of all the devils in 
hell.” I can give no idea of the vehemency of 
his words and utterance ; but we both stood aghast, 
and I in particular, who had been a witness of his 
former self-restraint. 

My lady looked at me with an appeal that went 
to my heart and recalled me to my wits. I made 
her a private sign to go, and, when my lord and 
I were alone, went up to him where he was racing 
to and fro in one end of the room like a half- 
lunatic, and set my hand firmly on his shoulder. 

“ My lord,” says I, “ I 'am going to be the 
plain-dealer once more; if for the last time, so 
much the better, for I am grown weary of the 
part.” 

“ Nothing will change me,” he answered. “ God 
forbid I should refuse to hear you; but nothing 
will change me.” This he said firmly, with no 
signal of the former violence, which already raised 
my hopes. 

“ Very well,” said I. “ I can afford to waste 
my breath.” I pointed to a chair, and he sat down 
and looked at me. “ I can remember a time when 
my lady very much neglected you,” said I. 


OF BALLANTRAE 225 

“ I never spoke of it while it lasted,” returned 
myg^rd, with a high flush of colour ; “ and it is 
all' changed now.” 

“ Do you know how much ? ” I said. “ Do you 
know how much it is all changed? The tables are 
turned, my lord! It is my lady that now courts 
you for a word, a look, ay, and courts you in vain. 
Do you know with whom she passes her days while 
you are out gallivanting in the policies ? My lord, 
she is glad to pass them with a certain dry old 
grieve 1 of the name of Ephraim Mackellar ; and 
I think you may be able to remember what that 
means, for I am the more in a mistake or you 
were once driven to the same company yourself.” 

“ Mackellar ! ” cries my lord, getting to his feet. 
“ O my God, Mackellar ! ” 

“ It is neither the name of Mackellar nor the 
name of God that can change the truth,” said I; 
“ and I am telling you the fact. Now, for you, 
that suffered so much, to deal out the same suffer- 
ing to another, is that the part of any Christian? 
But you are so swallowed up in your new friend 
that the old are all forgotten. They are all clean 
vanished from your memory. And yet they stood 
by you at the darkest ; my lady not the least. And 
does my lady ever cross your mind ? Does it ever 
cross your mind what she went through that night ? 


1 Land steward, 
it 


226 


THE MASTER 


— or what manner of a wife she has been to you I 
thenceforward ? — or in what kind of a position 
she finds herself to-day? Never. It is your pride 
to stay and face him out, and she must stay along 
with you. O, my lord’s pride — that ’s the great 
affair! And yet she is the woman, and you are 
a great, hulking man ! She is the woman that you 
swore to protect; and, more betoken, the own 
mother of that son of yours ! ” 

“ You are speaking very bitterly, Mackellar,” 
said he ; “ but, the Lord knows, I fear you are 
speaking very true. I have not proved worthy 
of my happiness. Bring my lady back.” 

My lady was waiting near at hand to learn the I 
issue. When I brought her in, my lord took a 
hand of each of us and laid them both upon his 
bosom. “ I have- had two friends in my life,” said 
he. “ All the comfort ever I had, it came from 
one or other. When you two are in a mind, I 

think I would be an ungrateful dog ” He shut 

his mouth very hard, and looked on us with swim- 
ming eyes. “ Do what ye like with me,” says he, 

“ only don’t think ” He stopped again. “ Do 

what ye please with me: God knows I love and 
honour you.” And dropping our two hands, he 
turned his back and went and gazed out of the win- 
dow. But my lady ran after, calling his name, and 
threw herself upon his neck in a passion of weeping. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


227 

I went out and shut the door behind me, and 
stood and thanked God from the bottom of my 
heart. 

At the breakfast board, according to my lord’s 
design, we were all met. The Master had by that 
time plucked off his patched boots and made a 
toilet suitable to the hour; Secundra Dass was no 
longer bundled up in wrappers, but wore a decent 
plain black suit, which misbecame him strangely; 
and the pair were at the great window looking 
forth, when the family entered. They turned; 
and the black man (as they had already named 
him in the house) bowed almost to his knees, but 
the Master was for running forward like one of 
the family. My lady stopped him, curtseying 
low from the far end of the hall, and keeping 
her children at her back. My lord was a little in 
front: so there were the three cousins of Durris- 
deer face to face. The hand of time was very 
legible on all; I seemed to read in their changed 
faces a memento mori ; and what affected me still 
more, it was the wicked man that bore his years 
the handsomest. My lady was quite transfigured 
into the matron, a becoming woman for the head 
of a great tableful of children and dependents. My 
lord was grown slack in his limbs ; he stooped ; he 
walked with a running motion, as though he had 
learned again from Mr. Alexander; his face was 


228 


THE MASTER 


drawn ; it seemed a trifle longer than of old ; and 
it wore at times a smile very singularly mingled, 1 
and which (in my eyes) appeared both bitter and 
pathetic. But the Master still bore himself erect, 
although perhaps with effort ; his brow barred 
about the centre with imperious lines, his mouth 
set as for command. He had all the gravity and 
something of the splendor of Satan in the “ Para- 
dise Lost.” I could not help but see the man with 
admiration, and was only surprised that I saw him 
with so little fear. 

But indeed (as long as we were at the table) 
it seemed as if his authority were quite vanished 
and his teeth all drawn. We had known him a j 
magician that controlled the elements; and here > 
he was, transformed into an ordinary gentleman, 
chatting like his neighbours at the breakfast board. 
For now the father was dead, and my lord and ! 
lady reconciled, in what ear was he to pour his '{ 
calumnies? It came upon me in a kind of vision 
how hugely I had overrated the man’s subtlety. 
He had his malice still, he was false as ever ; and, i 
the occasion being gone that made his strength, 
he sat there impotent; he was still the viper, 
but now spent his venom on a file. Two more 
thoughts occurred to me while yet we sat at 
breakfast : the first, that he was abashed — I 
had almost said distressed — to find his wicked- 


OF BALLANTRAE 229 

ness quite unavailing; the second, that perhaps 
my lord was in the right, and we did amiss to 
fly from our dismasted enemy. But my poor 
master’s leaping heart came in my mind, and I 
remembered it was for his life we played the 
coward. 

When the meal was over, the Master followed 
me to my room, and, taking a chair (which I had 
never offered him), asked me what was to be 
done with him. 

“ Why, Mr. Bally,” said I, “ the house will still 
be open to you for a time.” 

“ For a time? ” says he. “ I do not know if I 
quite take your meaning.” 

“ It is plain enough,” said I. “ We keep you 
for our reputation; as soon as you shall have 
publicly disgraced yourself by some of your mis- 
conduct, we shall pack you forth again.” 

“ You are become an impudent rogue,” said the 
Master, bending his brows at me dangerously. 

“ I learned in a good school,” I returned. 
“ And you must have perceived yourself, that with 
my old lord’s death your power is quite departed. 
I do not fear you now, Mr. Bally; I think even 
— God forgive me — that I take a certain pleasure 
in your company.” 

He broke out in a burst of laughter, which I 
dearly saw to be assumed. 


2JO 


THE MASTER 


“ I have come with empty pockets/' says he, 
after a pause. 

“ I do not think there will be any money going/' 
I replied. “ I would advise you not to build on 
that." 

“ I shall have something to say on the point," 
he returned. 

“ Indeed ? " said I. “ I have not a guess what 
it will be, then." 

“ Oh, you affect confidence," said the Master. 
“ I have still one strong position, — that you people 
fear a scandal, and I enjoy it." 

“ Pardon me, Mr. Bally," says I. “ We do not 
in the least fear a scandal against you." 

He laughed again. “ You have been studying 
repartee," he said. “ But speech is very easy, and 
sometimes very deceptive. I warn you fairly : 
you will find me vitriol in the house. You would 
do wiser to pay money down, and see my back." 
And with that, he waved his hand to me and left 
the room. 

A little after, my lord came with the lawyer, 
Mr. Carlyle; a bottle of old wine was brought, 
and we all had a glass before we fell to business. 
The necessary deeds were then prepared and exe- 
cuted, and the Scotch estates made over in trust 
to Mr. Carlyle and myself. 

“ There is one point, Mr. Carlyle," said my lord, 


OF BALLANTRAE 231 

when these affairs had been adjusted, “ on which 
I wish that you would do us justice. This sud- 
den departure coinciding with my brother’s return 
will be certainly commented on. I wish you would 
discourage any conjunction of the two.” 

“ I will make a point of it, my lord,” said Mr. 
Carlyle. “ The Mas — Mr. Bally does not then 
accompany you?” 

“ It is a point I must approach,” said my lord. 
“ Mr. Bally remains at Durrisdeer under the care 
of Mr. Mackellar ; and I do not mean that he shall 
even know our destination.” 

“ Common report, however ” began the 

lawyer. 

“ Ah, but, Mr. Carlyle, this is to be a secret quite 
among ourselves,” interrupted my lord. “ None 
but you and Mackellar are to be made acquainted 
with my movements.” 

“And Mr. Bally stays here? Quite so,” said 

Mr. Carlyle. “ The powers you leave ” Then 

he broke off again. “ Mr. Mackellar, we have a 
rather heavy weight upon us.” 

“ No doubt, sir,” said I. 

“ No doubt,” said he. “ Mr. Bally will have no 
voice? ” 

“ He will have no voice,” said my lord, “ and 
I hope no influence. Mr. Bally is not a good 
adviser.” 


THE MASTER 


232 

“ I see,” said the lawyer. “ By the way, has 
Mr. Bally means?” 

“ I understand him to have nothing,” replied my 
lord. “ I give him table, fire, and candle in this 
house.” 

“ And in the matter of an allowance? — if I 
am to share the responsibility, you will see how 
highly desirable it is that I should understand 
your views,” said the lawyer. “ On the question 
of an allowance?” 

“ There will be no allowance,” said my lord. 
“ I wish Mr. Bally to live very private. We have 
not always been gratified with his behaviour.” 

“ And in the matter of money,” I added, “ he 
has shown himself an infamous bad husband. 
Glance your eye upon that docket, Mr. Carlyle, 
where I have brought together the different 
sums the man has drawn from the estate in 
the last fifteen or twenty years. The total is 
pretty.” 

Mr. Carlyle made the motion of whistling. “ I 
had no guess of this,” said he. “ Excuse me once 
more, my lord, if I appear to push you; but it is 
really desirable I should penetrate your intentions : 
Mr. Mackellar might die, when I should find my- 
self alone upon this trust. Would it not be rather 
your lordship’s preference that Mr. Bally should 
— ahem — should leave the country ? ” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 33 

My lord looked at Mr. Carlyle. “ Why do you 
ask that ? ” said he. 

“ I gather, my lord, that Mr. Bally is not a 
comfort to his family,” says the lawyer with a 
smile. 

My lord’s face became suddenly knotted. “ I 
wish he was in hell,” cried he, and filled himself 
a glass of wine, but with a hand so tottering that 
he spilled the half into his bosom. This was the 
second time that, in the midst of the most regular 
and wise behaviour, his animosity had spirted out. 
It startled Mr. Carlyle, who observed my lord 
thenceforth with covert curiosity, and to me it 
restored the certainty that we were acting for the 
best in view of my lord’s health and reason. 

Except for this explosion, the interview was 
very successfully conducted. No doubt Mr. Car- 
lyle would talk; as lawyers do, little by little. 
We could thus feel we had laid the foundations 
of a better feeling in the country; and the man’s 
own misconduct would certainly complete what we 
had begun. Indeed, before his departure, the law- 
yer showed us there had already gone abroad some 
glimmerings of the truth. 

“ I should perhaps explain to you, my lord,” said 
he, pausing, with his hat in his hand, “ that I have 
not been altogether surprised with your lordship’s 
dispositions in the case of Mr. Bally. Something 


THE MASTER 


*34 

of this nature oozed out when he was last in 
Durrisdeer. There was some talk of a woman at 
St. Bride’s, to whom you had behaved extremely 
handsome, and Mr. Bally with no small degree of 
cruelty. There was the entail again, which was 
much controverted. In short, there was no want 
of talk, back and forward ; and some of our wise- 
acres took up a strong opinion. I remained in 
suspense, as became one of my cloth; but Mr. 
Mackellar’s docket here has finally opened my eyes. 
I do not think, Mr. Mackellar, that you and I will 
give him that much rope.” 

The rest of that important day passed prosper- 
ously through. It was our policy to keep the enemy 
in view, and I took my turn to be his watchman 
with the rest. I think his spirits rose as he per- 
ceived us to be so attentive: and I know that 
mine insensibly declined. What chiefly daunted 
me was the man’s singular dexterity to worm him- 
self into our troubles. You may have felt (after 
a horse, accident) the hand of a bone-setter art- 
fully divide and interrogate the muscles, and settle 
strongly on the injured place? It was so with the 
Master’s tongue that was so cunning to question, 
and his eyes that were so quick to observe. I 
seemed to have said nothing, and yet to have let 
all out. Before I knew where I was, the man was 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 3 S 

condoling with me on my lord’s neglect of my 
lady and myself, and his hurtful indulgence to his 
son. On this last point I perceived him (with 
panic fear) to return repeatedly. The boy had 
displayed a certain shrinking from his uncle; it 
was strong in my mind his father had been fool 
enough to indoctrinate the same, which was no 
wise beginning: and when I looked upon the man 
before me, still so handsome, so apt a speaker, with 
so great a variety of fortunes to relate, I saw he 
was the very personage to captivate a boyish fancy. 
John Paul had left only that morning; it was not 
to be supposed he had been altogether dumb upon 
his favourite subject: so that here would be Mr. 
Alexander in the part of Dido, with a curiosity 
inflamed to hear ; and there would be the Master 
like a diabolical iEneas, full of matter the most 
pleasing in the world to any youthful ear, such as 
battles, sea-disasters, flights, the forests of the 
west, and (since his later voyage) the ancient 
cities of the Indies. How cunningly these baits 
might be employed, and what an empire might be 
so founded, little by little, in the mind of any 
boy, stood obviously clear to me. There was no 
inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, 
that would be strong enough to hold these two 
apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it is 
no very difficult thing to cast a glamour on a little 


THE MASTER 


236 

chip of manhood not very long in breeches. I 
recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone 
house beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe he 
called it after Portobello), and how the boys would 
troop out of Leith on a Saturday, and sit and 
listen to his swearing tales, as thick as crows 
about a carrion : a thing I often remarked as I 
went by, a young student, on my own more medi- 
tative holiday diversion. Many of these boys went, 
no doubt, in the face of an express command; 
many feared and even hated the old brute of 
whom they made their hero; and I have seen 
them flee from him when he was tipsy, and 
stone him when he was drunk. And yet there 
they came each Saturday ! How much more ; 
easily would a boy like Mr. Alexander fall 
under the influence of a high-looking, high- 
spoken gentleman-adventurer, who should con- 
ceive the fancy to entrap him; and, the influence 
gained, how easy to employ it for the child’s 
perversion ! 

I doubt if our enemy had named Mr. Alexander 
three times, before I perceived which way his mind 
was aiming, — all this train of thought and mem- 
ory passed in one pulsation through my own, — 
and you may say I started back as though an open 
hole had gaped across a pathway. Mr. Alexander : 
there was the weak point, there was the Eve in 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 37 

our perishable paradise; and the serpent was al- 
ready hissing on the trail. 

I promise you I went the more heartily about 
the preparations ; my last scruple gone, the danger 
of delay written before me in huge characters. 
From that moment forth, I seem not to have sat 
down or breathed. Now I would be at my post 
with the Master and his Indian; now in the gar- 
ret buckling a valise; now sending forth Mac- 
conochie by the side postern and the wood-path 
to bear it to the trysting-place ; and again, snatch- 
ing some words of counsel with my lady. This 
was the verso of our life in Durrisdeer that day; 
but on the recto all appeared quite settled, as of a 
family at home in its paternal seat; and what 
perturbation may have been observable, the Master 
would set down to the blow of his unlooked for 
coming and the fear he was accustomed to inspire. 

Supper went creditably off, cold salutations 
passed, and the company trooped to their respec- 
tive chambers. I attended the Master to the last. 
We had put him next door to his Indian, in the 
north wing; because that was the most distant 
and could be severed from the body of the house 
with doors. I saw he was a kind friend or a good 
master (whichever it was) to his Secundra Dass: 
seeing to his comfort; mending the fire with his 
own hand, for the Indian complained of cold; in- 


THE MASTER 


238 

quiring as to the rice on which the stranger made 
his diet; talking with him pleasantly in the Hin- 
dustanee, while I stood by, my candle in my hand, 
and affected to be overcome with slumber. At 
length the Master observed my signals of distress. 
“ I perceive,” says he, “ that you have all your 
ancient habits: early to bed and early to rise. 
Yawn yourself away! ” 

Once in my own room, I made the customary 
motions of undressing, so that I might time my- 
self; and when the cycle was complete, set my 
tinder-box ready and blew out my taper. The 
matter of an hour afterward, I made a light again, 
put on my shoes of list that I had worn by my 
lord’s sick-bed, and set forth into the house to call 
the voyagers. All were dressed and waiting, — 
my lord, my lady, Miss Katharine, Mr. Alexander, 
my lady’s woman Christie; and I observed the 
effect of secrecy even upon quite innocent persons, 
that one after another showed in the chink of the 
door a face as white as paper. We slipped out of 
the side postern into a night of darkness, scarce 
broken by a star or two ; so that at first we 
groped and stumbled and fell among the bushes. 
A few hundred yards up the wood-path, Maccono- 
chie was waiting us with a great lantern; so the 
rest of the way we went easy enough, but still in 
a kind of guilty silence. A little beyond the abbey, 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 39 


j the path debouched on the main road ; and some 
quarter of a mile farther, at the place called Eagles, 
where the moors begin, we saw the lights of the 
I two carriages stand shining by the wayside. Scarce 
a word or two was uttered at our parting, and 
these regarded business : a silent grasping of hands, 
a turning of faces aside, and the thing was over; 
the horses broke into a trot, the lamplight sped 
like Will o’ the Wisp upon the broken moorland, 
it dipped beyond Stony Brae ; and there were Mac- 
conochie and I alone with our lantern on the road. 
There was one thing more to wait for; and that 
was the reappearance of the coach upon Cartmore. 
It seems they must have pulled up upon the sum- 
mit, looked back for a last time, and seen our 
lantern not yet moved away from the place of 
separation. For a lamp was taken from a car- 
riage, and waved three times up and down by 
way of a farewell. And then they were gone in- 
deed, having looked their last on the kind roof 
of Durrisdeer, their faces toward a barbarous 
country. I never knew, before, the greatness of 
that vault of night in which we two poor serving 
men, the one old and the one elderly, stood for 
the first time deserted; I had never felt, before, 
my own dependency upon the countenance of 
others. The sense of isolation burned in my 
bowels like a fire. It seemed that we who re- 


240 


THE MASTER 


mained at home were the true exiles; and that 
Durrisdeer, and Solwayside, and all that made my 
country native, its air good to me, and its lan- 
guage welcome, had gone forth and was for over 
the sea with my old masters. 

The remainder of that night I paced to and fro 
on the smooth highway, reflecting on the future 
and the past. My thoughts, which at first dwelled 
tenderly on those who were just gone, took a more 
manly temper as I considered what remained for 
me to do. Day came upon the inland mountain- 
tops, and the fowls began to cry and the smoke 
of homesteads to arise in the brown bosom of the 
moors, before I turned my face homeward and 
went down the path to where the roof of Durris- 
deer shone in the morning by the sea. 

At the customary hour I had the Master called, 
and awaited his coming in the hall with a quiet 
mind. He looked about him at the empty room 
and the three covers set. 

“ We are a small party,” said he. “ How comes 
that?” 

“ This is the party to which we must grow ac- 
customed,” I replied. 

He looked at me with a sudden sharpness. 
“ What is all this ? ” said he. 

“ You and I and your friend Mr. Dass are now 


OF BALLANTRAE 241 

all the company,” I replied. “ My lord, my lady, 
and the children are gone upon a voyage.” 

“ Upon my word ! ” said he. “ Can this be pos- 
sible? I have indeed fluttered your Volscians in 
Corioli ! But this is no reason why our breakfast 
should go cold. Sit down, Mr. Mackellar, if you 
please ” — taking, as he spoke, the head of the 
table, which I had designed to occupy myself — 
“ and as we eat, you can give me the details of 
this evasion.” 

I could see he was more affected than his lan- 
guage carried, and I determined to equal him in 
coolness. “ I was about to ask you to take the 
head of the table,” said I ; “ for though I am now 
thrust into the position of your host, I could never 
forget that you were, after all, a member of the 
family.” 

For awhile he played the part of entertainer, 
giving directions to Macconochie, who received 
them with an evil grace, and attending specially 
upon Secundra. “ And where has my good family 
withdrawn to ? ” he asked carelessly. 

“ Ah, Mr. Bally, that is another point ! ” said 
I. “ I have no orders to communicate their 
destination.” 

“ To me,” he corrected. 

“ To any one,” said I. 

“ It is the less pointed,” said the Master; “ c’est 


THE MASTER 


242 

de bon ton: my brother improves as he continues. 
And I, dear Mr. Mackellar?” 

“ You will have bed and board, Mr. Bally/’ said 
I. “ I am permitted to give you the run of the 
cellar, which is pretty reasonably stocked. You 
have only to keep well with me, which is no very 
difficult matter, and you shall want neither for 
wine nor a saddle-horse.” 

He made an excuse to send Macconochie from 
the room. 

“And for money?” he inquired. “Have I to 
keep well with my good friend Mackellar for my 
pocket-money also? This is a pleasing return to 
the principles of boyhood.” 

“ There was no allowance made,” said I ; “ but 
I will take it on myself to see you are supplied 
in moderation.” 

“ In moderation? ” he repeated. “ And you will 
take it on yourself ? ” He drew himself up and 
looked about the hall at the dark rows of portraits. 
“ In the name of my ancestors, I thank you,” says 
he ; and then, with a return to irony : “ But there 
must certainly be an allowance for Secundra 
Dass?” he said. “It is not possible they have 
omitted that.” 

“ I will make a note of it and ask instructions 
when I write,” said I. 

And he, with a sudden change of manner, and 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


243 

leaning forward with an elbow on the table : “ Do 
you think this entirely wise?” 

“ I execute my orders, Mr. Bally,” said I. 

“ Profoundly modest,” said the Master : “ per- 
haps not equally ingenuous. You told me yester- 
day my power was fallen with my father’s death. 
How comes it, then, that a peer of the realm 
flees under cloud of night out of a house in 
which his fathers have stood several sieges? 
that he conceals his address, which must be a 
1 matter of concern to his Gracious Majesty and 
to the whole republic? and that he should 
leave me in possession, and under the pater- 
nal charge of his invaluable Mackellar ? This 
smacks to me of a very considerable and genuine 
apprehension.” 

I sought to interrupt him with some not very 
truthful denegation; but he waved me down and 
pursued his speech. 

“ I say it smacks of it,” he said, “ but I will go 
beyond that, for I think the apprehension grounded. 
I came to this house with some reluctancy. In 
view of the manner of my last departure, nothing 
but necessity could have induced me to return. 
Money, however, is that which I must have. You 
will not give with a good grace; well, I have the 
power to force it from you. Inside of a week, 
without leaving Durrisdeer, I will find out where 


244 


THE MASTER 


these fools are fled to. I will follow; and when 
I have run my quarry down, I will drive a wedge 
into that family that shall once more burst it into 
shivers. I shall see then whether my Lord Dur- 
risdeer ” (said with indescribable scorn and rage) 
“ will choose to buy my absence ; and you will all 
see whether, by that time, I decide for profit or 
revenge.” 

I was amazed to hear the man so open. The 
truth is, he was consumed with anger at my lord’s 
successful flight, felt himself to figure as a dupe, 
and was in no humour to weigh language. 

“Do you consider this entirely wise?” said I, 
copying his words. 

“ These twenty years I have lived by my poor 
wisdom,” he answered with a smile that seemed 
almost foolish in its vanity. 

“ And come out a beggar in the end,” said I, 
“ if beggar be a strong enough word for it.” 

“ I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar,” 
cried he, with a sudden, imperious heat in which 
I could not but admire him, “ that I am scrupu- 
lously civil : copy me in that, and we shall be the 
better friends.” 

Throughout this dialogue I had been incom- 
moded by the observation of Secundra Dass. Not 
one of us, since the first word, had made a feint of 
eating : our eyes were in each other’s faces — you 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 45 


might say, in each other’s bosoms; and those of 
the Indian troubled me with a certain changing 
brightness, as of comprehension. But I brushed 
the fancy aside : telling myself once more he 
understood no English; only, from the gravity of 
both voices and the occasional scorn and anger in 
the Master’s, smelled out there was something of 
import in the wind. 

For the matter of three weeks we continued to 
live together in the house of Durrisdeer: the be- 
ginning of that most singular chapter of my life 
— what I must call my intimacy with the Master. 
At first he was somewhat changeable in his beha- 
viour : now civil, now returning to his old manner 
of flouting me to my face ; and in both I met him 
half-way. Thanks be to Providence, I had now 
no measure to keep with the man ; and I was never 
afraid of black brows, only of naked swords. So 
that I found a certain entertainment in these bouts 
of incivility, and was not always ill-inspired in my 
rejoinders. At last (it was at supper) I had a 
droll expression that entirely vanquished him. He 
laughed again and again ; and “ Who would have 
guessed,” he cried, “ that this old wife had any 
wit under his petticoats ? ” 

“ It is no wit, Mr. Bally,” said I : “ a dry Scot’s 
humour, and something of the dryest.” And in- 


246 THE MASTER 

deed I never had the least pretension to be thought 
a wit. 

From that hour he was never rude with me, 
but all passed between us in a manner of pleas- 
antry. One of our chief times of daffing 1 was 
when he required a horse, another bottle, or some 
money ; he would approach me then after the 
manner of a school-boy, and I would carry it on 
by way of being his father: on both sides, with 
an infinity of mirth. I could not but perceive that 
he thought more of me, which tickled that poor 
part of mankind, the vanity. He dropped besides 
(I must suppose unconsciously) into a manner 
that was not only familiar, but even friendly; and 
this, on the part of one who had so long detested 
me, I found the more insidious. He went little 
abroad ; sometimes even refusing invitations. 
“ No,” he would say, “ what do I care for these 
thick-headed bonnet-lairds? I will stay at home, 
Mackellar; and we shall share a bottle quietly 
and have one of our good talks.” And indeed 
meal-time at Durrisdeer must have been a delight 
to any one, by reason of the brilliancy of the 
discourse. He would often express wonder at 
his former indifference to my society. “ But you 
see,” he would add, “ we were upon opposite sides. 
And so we are to-day; but let us never speak of 

1 Fooling. 


OF BALLANTRAE 247 

that. I would think much less of you if you were 
not staunch to your employer.” You are to con- 
sider, he seemed to me quite impotent for any 
evil; and how it is a most engaging form of 
flattery when (after many years) tardy justice is 
done to a man’s character and parts. But I have 
no thought to excuse myself. I was to blame; I 
let him cajole me ; and, in short, I think the watch- 
dog was going sound asleep, when he was sud- 
denly aroused. 

I should say the Indian was continually travel- 
ling to and fro in the house. He never spoke, 
save in his own dialect and with the Master ; 
walked without sound; and was always turning 
up where you would least expect him fallen into 
a deep abstraction, from which he would start 
(upon your coming) to mock you with one of his 
grovelling obeisances. He seemed so quiet, so frail, 
and so wrapped in his own fancies, that I came 
to pass him over without much regard, or even 
to pity him for a harmless exile from his country. 
And yet without doubt the creature was still eaves- 
dropping; and without doubt it was through his 
stealth and my security that our secret reached 
the Master. 

It was one very wild night, after supper, and 
when we had been making more than usually 
merry, that the blow fell on me. 


THE MASTER 


148 

“ This is all very fine,” says the Master, “ but 
we should do better to be buckling our valise.” 

“ Why so? ” I cried. “ Are you leaving? ” 

“ We are all leaving to-morrow in the morning/' 
said he. “ For the port of Glascow first : thence 
for the province of New York.” 

I suppose I must have groaned aloud. 

“ Yes,” he continued, “I boasted: I said a 
week, and it has taken me near twenty days. But 
never mind: I shall make it up; I will go the 
faster.” 

“Have you the money for this voyage?” I 
asked. 

“ Dear and ingenuous personage, I have,” said 
he. “ Blame me, if you choose, for my duplicity ; 
but while I have been wringing shillings from my 
daddy, I had a stock of my own put by against a 
rainy day. You will pay for your own passage, 
if you choose to accompany us on our flank march ; 
I have enough for Secundra and myself, but not 
more: enough to be dangerous, not enough to be 
generous. There is, however, an outside seat upon 
the chaise which I will let you have upon a mod- 
erate commutation; so that the whole menagerie 
can go together, the house-dog, the monkey, and 
the tiger.” 

“ I go with you,” said I. 

“ I count upon it,” said the Master. “ You have 


OF BALLANTRAE 


249 

seen me foiled, I mean you shall see me victorious. 
To gain that I will risk wetting you like a sop in 
this wild weather.” 

“ And at least,” I added, “ you know very well 
you could not throw me off.” 

“ Not easily,” said he. “ You put your finger 
on the point with your usual excellent good sense, 
I never fight with the inevitable.” 

“ I suppose it is useless to appeal to you,” 
said I. 

“ Believe me, perfectly,” said he. 

“ And yet if you would give me time, I could 
write ” I began. 

“ And what would be my Lord Durrisdeer’s 
answer ? ” asks he. 

“ Aye,” said I, “ that is the rub.” 

“ And at any rate, how much more expeditious 
that I should go myself ! ” says he. “ But all this 
is quite a waste of breath. At seven to-morrow 
the chaise will be at the door. For I start from 
the door, Mackellar ; I do not skulk through woods 
and take my chaise upon the wayside — shall we 
say, at Eagles ? ” 

My mind was now thoroughly made up. “ Can 
you spare me quarter of an hour at St. Bride’s? ” 
said I. “ I have a little necessary business with 
Carlyle.” 

“ An hour, if you prefer,” said he. “ I do not 


250 


THE MASTER 


seek to deny that the money for your seat is an 
object to me; and you could always get the first 
to Glascow with saddle-horses.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ I never thought to leave old 
Scotland.” 

“ It will brisken you up,” says he. 

“ This will be an ill journey for some one,” I 
said. “ I think, sir, for you. Something speaks 
in my bosom; and so much it says plain, That 
this is an ill-omened journey.” 

“ If you take to prophecy,” says he, “ listen to 
that.” 

There came up a violent squall off the open 
Solway, and the rain was dashed on the great 
windows. 

“Do ye ken what that bodes, warlock?” said 
he, in a broad accent : “ that there ’ll be a man 
Mackellar unco sick at sea.” 

When I got to my chamber, I sat there under a 
painful excitation, hearkening to the turmoil of 
the gale which struck full upon that gable of the 
house. What with the pressure on my spirits, the 
eldritch cries of the wind among the turret-tops, 
and the perpetual trepidation of the masoned house, 
sleep fled my eyelids utterly. I sat by my taper, 
looking on the black panes of the window where 
the storm appeared continually on the point of 
bursting in its entrance; and upon that empty 


OF BALLANTRAE 251 

field I beheld a perspective of consequences that 
made the hair to rise upon my scalp. The child 
corrupted, the home broken up, my master dead 
or worse than dead, my mistress plunged in deso- 
lation, — all these I saw before me painted brightly 
on the darkness; and the outcry of the wind ap- 
peared to mock at my inaction. 


252 


THE MASTER 


MR. MACKELLAR’S JOURNEY 
WITH THE MASTER 

T HE chaise came to the door in a strong 
drenching mist. We took our leave in 
silence : the house of Durrisdeer stand- 
ing with dropping gutters and windows closed, 
like a place dedicate to melancholy. I observed 
the Master kept his head out, looking back on 
these splashed walls and glimmering roofs, till 
they were suddenly swallowed in the mist; and I 
must suppose some natural sadness fell upon the 
man at this departure; or was it some prevision 
of the end ? At least, upon our mounting the long 
brae from Durrisdeer, as we walked side by side 
in the wet, he began first to whistle and then to 
sing the saddest of our country tunes, which sets 
folk weeping in a tavern, Wandering Willie. The 
set of words he used with it, I have not heard else- 
where, and could never come by any copy; but 
some of them which were the most appropriate to 
our departure linger in my memory. One verse 
began : 

Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces ; 
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child< 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 53 


And ended somewhat thus : 

Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, 

Lone stands the house and the chimney-stone is cold. 

Lone let it stand, now the folks are all departed, 

The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old. 

I could never be a judge of the merit of these 
verses; they were so hallowed by the melancholy 
of the air, and were sung (or rather “ soothed ”) 
to me by a master singer at a time so fitting. He 
looked in my face when he had done, and saw that 
my eyes watered. 

“ Ah, Mackellar,” said he, “ do you think I have 
never a regret ? ” 

“ I do not think you could be so bad a man,” 
said I, “ if you had not all the machinery to be 
a good one.” 

“ No, not all,” says he : “ not all. You are there 
in error. The malady of not wanting, my evan- 
gelist.” But methought he sighed as he mounted 
again into the chaise. 

All day long we journeyed in the same miserable 
weather : the mist besetting us closely, the heavens 
incessantly weeping on my head. The road lay 
over moorish hills, where was no sound but the 
crying of moor-fowl in the wet heather and the 
pouring of the swollen burns. Sometimes I would 
doze off in slumber, when I would find myself 
plunged at once in some foul and ominous night- 


THE MASTER 


254 

mare, from the which I would awaken strangling. 
Sometimes, if the way was steep and the wheels 
turning slowly, I would overhear the voices from 
within, talking in that tropical tongue which was 
to me as inarticulate as the piping of the fowls. 
Sometimes, at a longer ascent, the Master would 
set foot to ground and walk by my side, mostly 
without speech. And all the time, sleeping or 
waking, I beheld the same black perspective of 
approaching ruin; and the same pictures rose in 
my view, only they were now painted upon hill- 
side mist. One, I remember, stood before me with 
the colours of a true illusion. It showed me my 
lord seated at a table in a small room; his head, 
which was at first buried in his hands, he slowly 
raised, and turned upon me a countenance from 
which hope had fled. I saw it first on the black 
window-panes, my last night in Durrisdeer; it 
haunted and returned upon me half the voyage 
through; and yet it was no effect of lunacy, for 
I have come to a ripe old age with no decay of 
my intelligence; nor yet (as I was then tempted 
to suppose) a heaven-sent warning of the future, 
for all manner of calamities befell, not that calam- 
ity — and I saw many pitiful sights, but never that 
one. 

It was decided we should travel on all night; 
and it was singular, once the dusk had fallen, my 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 55 

spirits somewhat rose. The bright lamps, shining 
forth into the mist and on the smoking horses and 
the hodding post-boy, gave me perhaps an outlook 
intrinsically more cheerful than what day had 
shown; or perhaps my mind had become wearied 
of its melancholy. At least, I spent some waking 
hours, not without satisfaction in my thoughts, 
although wet and weary in my body; and fell at 
last into a natural slumber without dreams. Yet 
I must have been at work even in the deepest of 
my sleep; and at work with at least a measure 
of intelligence. For I started broad awake, in 
the very act of crying out to myself 

Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child, 

stricken to find in it an appropriateness, which I 
had not yesterday observed, to the Master’s detes- 
table purpose in the present journey. 

We were then close upon the city of Glascow, 
where - we were soon breakfasting together at an 
inn, and where (as the devil would have it) we 
found a ship in the very article of sailing. We 
took our places in the cabin ; and, two days after, 
carried our effects on board. Her name was the 
Nonesuch, a very ancient ship and very happily 
named. By all accounts this should be her last 
voyage; people shook their heads upon the quays, 
and I had several warnings offered me by strangers 


THE MASTER 


256 

in the street, to the effect that she was rotten as 
a cheese, too deeply loaden, and must infallibly 
founder if we met a gale. From this it fell out 
we were the only passengers ; the captain, McMur- 
trie, was a silent, absorbed man with the Glascow 
or Gaelic accent; the mates ignorant, rough sea- 
farers, come in through the hawsehole; and the 
Master and I were cast upon each other’s company. 

The Nonesuch carried a fair wind out of the 
Clyde, and for near upon a week we enjoyed 
bright weather and a sense of progress. I found 
myself (to my wonder) a born seaman, in so far 
at least as I was never sick; yet I was far from 
tasting the usual serenity of my health. Whether 
it was the motion of the ship on the billows, the 
confinement, the salted food, or all of these to- 
gether, I suffered from a blackness of spirit and 
a painful strain upon my temper. The nature of 
my errand on that ship perhaps contributed; I 
think it did no more: the malady (whatever it 
was) sprang from my environment; and if the 
ship were not to blame, then it was the Master. 
Hatred and fear are ill bedfellows; but (to my 
shame be it spoken) I have tasted those in other 
places, lain down and got up with them, and eaten 
and drunk with them, and yet never before, nor 
after, have I been so poisoned through and through, 
in soul and body, as I was on board the None - 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


257 

s such. I freely confess my enemy set me a fair 
^ example of forbearance; in our worst days dis- 
1 played the most patient geniality, holding me in 
conversation as long as I would suffer, and when 
1 I had rebuffed his civility, stretching himself on 
deck to read. The book he had on board with 
: him was Mr. Richardson’s famous Clarissa; and 
among other small attentions he would read me 
passages aloud; nor could any elocutionist have 
given with greater potency the pathetic portions 
of that work. I would retort upon him with pas- 
sages out of the Bible, which was all my library 
— and very fresh to me, my religious duties (I 
grieve to say it) being always and even to this 
day extremely neglected. He tasted the merits of 
the work like the connoisseur he was; and would 
sometimes take it from my hand, turn the leaves 
over like a man that knew his way, and give me, 
with his fine declamation, a Roland for my Oliver. 
But it was singular how little he applied his read- 
ing to himself ; it passed high above his head like 
summer thunder : Lovelace and Clarissa, the tales 
of David’s generosity, the psalms of his penitence, 
the solemn questions of the book of Job, the touch- 
ing poetry of Isaiah — they were to him a source 
of entertainment only, like the scraping of a fiddle 
in a change-house. This outer sensibility and inner 
toughness set me against him ; it seemed of a piece 
17 


25 8 THE MASTER 

with that impudent grossness which I knew to 
underlie the veneer of his fine manners ; and some- 
times my gorge rose against him as though he 
were deformed — and sometimes I would draw 
away as though from something partly spectral. 
I had moments when I thought of him as of a 
man of pasteboard — as though, if one should 
strike smartly through the buckram of his coun- 
tenance, there would be found a mere vacuity 
within. This horror (not merely fanciful, I think) 
vastly increased my detestation of his neighboui'r 
hood; I began to feel something shiver within 
me on his drawing near; I had at times a long- 
ing to cry out; there were days when I thought 
I could have struck him. This frame of mind 
was doubtless helped by shame, because I had 
dropped during our last days at Durrisdeer into 
a certain toleration of the man; and if any one 
had then told me I should drop into it again, I 
must have laughed in his face. It is possible he 
remained unconscious of this extreme fever of my 
resentment; yet I think he was too quick; and 
t rather that he had fallen, in a long life of idle- 
ness, into a positive need of company, which 
obliged him to confront and tolerate my uncon- 
cealed aversion. Certain at least, that he loved 
the note of his own tongue, as indeed he entirely 
loved all the parts and properties of himself : a 


OF BALLANTRAE 


2 59 

sort of imbecility which almost necessarily attends 
on wickedness. I have seen him driven, when I 
proved recalcitrant, to long* discourses with the 
skipper: and this, although the man plainly testi- 
fied his weariness, fiddling miserably with both 
hand and foot, and replying only with a grunt. 

After the first week out, we fell in with foul 
winds and heavy weather. The sea was high. 
The Nonesuch, being an old-fashioned ship and 
badly loaden, rolled beyond belief ; so that the 
skipper trembled for his masts and I for my life. 
We made no progress on our course. An un- 
bearable ill-humour settled on the ship ; men, 
mates and master, girding at one another all day 
long. A saucy word on the one hand, and a blow 
on the other, made a daily incident. There were 
times when the whole crew refused their duty ; and 
we of the afterguard were twice got under arms 
(being the first time that ever I bore weapons) in 
the fear of mutiny. 

In the midst of our evil season sprang up a 
hurricane of wind; so that all supposed she must 
go down. I was shut in the cabin from noon 
of one day till sundown of the next; the Master 
was somewhere lashed on deck. Secundra had 
eaten of some drug and lay insensible; so you 
may say I passed these hours in an unbroken soli- 
tude. At first I was terrified beyond motion and 


26c 


THE MASTER 


almost beyond thought, my mind appearing to be 
frozen. Presently there stole in on me a ray of 
comfort. If the Nonesuch foundered, she would 
carry down with her into the deeps of that un- 
sounded sea the creature whom we all so feared 
and hated; there would be no more Master of 
Ballantrae, the fish would sport among his ribs; 
his schemes all brought to nothing, his harmless 
enemies at peace. At first, I have said, it was but 
a ray of comfort; but it had soon grown to be 
broad sunshine. The thought of the man’s death, 
of his deletion from this world which he embit- 
tered for so many, took possession of my mind. 
I hugged it, I found it sweet in my belly. I con- 
ceived the ship’s last plunge, the sea bursting upon 
all sides into the cabin, the brief mortal conflict 
there, all by myself, in that closed place; I num- 
bered the horrors, I had almost said with satisfac- 
tion; I felt I could bear all and more, if the 
Nonesuch carried down with her, overtook by the 
same ruin, the enemy of my poor master’s house. 
Towards noon of the second day, the screaming 
of the wind abated; the ship lay not so perilously 
over ; and it began to be clear to me that we were 
past the height of the tempest. As I hope for 
mercy, I was singly disappointed. In the selfish- 
ness of that vile, absorbing passion of hatred, I 
forgot the case of our innocent shipmates and 


OF BALLANTRAE 261 


thought but of myself and my enemy. For myself, 
I was already old, I had never been young, I was 
not formed for the world’s pleasures, I had few 
affections; it mattered not the toss of a silver 
tester whether I was drowned there and then in 
the Atlantic, or dribbled out a few more years, 
to die, perhaps no less terribly, in a deserted sick- 
bed. Down I went upon my knees, — holding on 
by the locker, or else I had been instantly dashed 
across the tossing cabin, — and, lifting up my 
voice in the midst of that clamour of the abating 
hurricane, impiously prayed for my own death. 
“ O God,” I cried, “ I would be liker a man if I 
rose and struck this creature down ; but thou 
madest me a coward from my mother’s womb. 

0 Lord, thou madest me so, thou knowest my 
weakness, thou knowest that any face of death 
will set me shaking in my shoes. But lo ! here is 
thy servant ready, his mortal weakness laid aside. 
Let me give my life for this creature’s; take the 
two of them, Lord ! take the two, and have mercy 
on the innocent ! ” In some such words as these, 
only yet more irreverent and with more sacred 
adjurations, I continued to pour forth my spirit; 
God heard me not, I must suppose in mercy; and 

1 was still absorbed in my agony of supplication, 
when some one, removing the tarpaulin cover, let 
the light of the sunset pour into the cabin. I 


THE MASTER 


262 

stumbled to my feet ashamed, and was seized with 
surprise to find myself totter and ache like one 
that had been stretched upon the rack. Secundra 
Dass, who had slept off the effects of his drug, 
stood in a corner not far off, gazing at me with j 
wild eyes; and from the open skylight the captain 
thanked me for my supplications. 

“ It ’s you that saved the ship, Mr. Mackellar,” 
says he. “ There is no craft of seamanship that 
could have kept her floating: well may we say: 

* Except the Lord the city keep, the watchmen 
watch in vain ! ’ ” 

I was abashed by the captain’s error; abashed, 
also, by the surprise and fear with which the 
Indian regarded me at first, and the obsequious 
civilities with which he soon began to cumber me. 

I know now that he must have overheard and 
comprehended the peculiar nature of my prayers. 
It is certain, of course, that he at once disclosed 
the matter to his patron; and looking back with 
greater knowledge, I can now understand, what so ' 
much puzzled me at the moment, those singular ■ 
and (so to speak) approving smiles with which 
the Master honoured me. Similarly, I can under- 
stand a word that I remember to have fallen from 
him in conversation that same night; when, hold- 
ing up his hand and smiling, “ Ah, Mackellar,” 
said he, “ not every man is so great a coward as 


OF BALLANTRAE 263 

he thinks he is — nor yet so good a Christian.’’ 
He did not guess how true he spoke! For the 
fact is, the thoughts which had come to me in the 
violence of the storm retained their hold upon my 
spirit ; and the words that rose to my lips unbidden 
in the instancy of prayer continued to sound in my 
ears: with what shameful consequences, it is fit- 
ting I should honestly relate; for I could not sup- 
port a part of such disloyalty as to describe the 
sins of others and conceal my own. 

The wind fell, but the sea hove ever the higher. 
All night the Nonesuch rolled outrageously; the 
next day dawned, and the next, and brought no 
change. To cross the cabin was scarce possible; 
old, experienced seamen were cast down upon the 
deck, and one cruelly mauled in the concussion; 
every board and block in the old ship cried out 
aloud ; and the great bell by the anchor-bitts con- 
tinually and dolefully rang. One of these days 
the Master and I sate alone together at the break 
of the poop. I should say the Nonesuch carried a 
high, raised poop. About the top of it ran consid- 
erable bulwarks, which made the ship unweatherly ; 
and these, as they approached the front on each side, 
ran down in a fine, old-fashioned, carven scroll to 
join the bulwarks of the waist. From this disposi- 
tion, which seems designed rather for ornament 
than use, it followed there was a discontinuance 


2 64 THE MASTER 

of protection: and that, besides, at the very mar- 
gin of the elevated part where (in certain move- 
ments of the ship) it might be the most needful. 
It was here we were sitting: our feet hanging 
down, the Master betwixt me and the side, and I 
holding on with both hands to the grating of the 
cabin skylight; for it struck me it was a danger- 
ous position, the more so as I had continually be- 
fore my eyes a measure of our evolutions in the 
person of the Master, which stood out in the break 
of the bulwarks against the sun. Now his head 
would be in the zenith and his shadow fall quite 
beyond the Nonesuch on the further side; and 
now he would swing down till he was underneath 
my feet, and the line of the sea leaped high above 
him like the ceiling of a room. I looked on upon 
this with a growing fascination, as birds are said 
to look on snakes. My mind besides was troubled 
with an astonishing diversity of noises; for now 
that we had all sails spread in the vain hope to 
bring her to the sea, the ship sounded like a factory 
with their reverberations. We spoke first of the 
mutiny with which we had been threatened; this 
led us on to the topic of assassination; and that 
offered a temptation to the Master more strong 
than he was able to resist. He must tell me a tale, 
and show me at the same time how clever he was 
and how wicked. It was a thing he did always 


OF BALLANTRAE 265 

with affectation and display ; generally with a 
good effect. But this tale, told in a high key in 
the midst of so great a tumult, and by a narrator 
who was one moment looking down at me from 
the skies and the next peering up from under the 
soles of my feet — this particular tale, I say, took 
hold upon me in a degree quite singular. 

“ My friend the count,” it was thus that he 
began his story, “ had for an enemy a certain 
German baron, a stranger in Rome. It matters 
not what was the ground of the count’s enmity; 
but as he had a firm design to be revenged, and 
that with safety to himself, he kept it secret even 
from the baron. Indeed that is the first principle 
of vengeance; and hatred betrayed is hatred im- 
potent. The count was a man of a curious, search- 
ing mind; he had something of the artist; if 
anything fell for him to do, it must always be 
done with an exact perfection, not only as to the 
result but in the very means and instruments, or 
he thought the thing miscarried. It chanced he 
was one day riding in the outer suburbs, when he 
came to a disused by-road branching off into the 
moor which lies about Rome. On the one hand 
was an ancient Roman tomb; on the other a de- 
serted house in a garden of evergreen trees. This 
road brought him presently into a field of ruins, 
in the midst of which, in the side of a hill, he saw 


266 


THE MASTER 


an open door and (not far off) a single stunted 
pine no greater than a currant-bush. The place was 
desert and very secret : a voice spoke in the count’s 
bosom that there was something here to his ad- 
vantage. He tied his horse to the pine-tree, took 
his flint and steel in his hand to make a light, and 
entered into the hill. The doorway opened on a 
passage of old Roman masonry, which shortly 
after branched in two. The count took the turn- 
ing to the right, and followed it, groping forward 
in the dark, till he was brought up by a kind of 
fence, about elbow-high, which extended quite 
across the passage. Sounding forward with his 
foot, he found an edge of polished stone, and then , 
vacancy. All his curiosity was now awakened, 
and, getting some rotten sticks that lay about the 
floor, he made a fire. In front of him was a pro- 
found well : doubtless some neighbouring peasant 
had once used it for his water, and it was he that 
had set up the fence. A long while the count stood 
leaning on the rail and looking down into the pit. 

It was of Roman foundation, and, like all that 
nation set their hands to, built as for eternity: j 
the sides were still straight and the joints smooth; ' 
to a man who should fall in, no escape was pos- 
sible. ‘ Now,’ the count was thinking, * a strong 
impulsion brought me to this place: what for? 
what have I gained? why should I be sent to gaze 


OF BALLANTRAE 267 

into this well ? ’ — when the rail of the fence gave 
suddenly under his weight, and he came within 
an ace of falling headlong in. Leaping back to 
save himself, he trod out the last flicker of his 
fire, which gave him thenceforward no more light, 
only an incommoding smoke. 4 Was I sent here 
to my death?’ says he, and shook from head to 
foot. And then a thought flashed in his mind. 

I He crept forth on hands and knees to the brink of 
‘the pit and felt above him in the air. The rail had 
been fast to a pair of uprights; it had only broken 
ifrom the one, and still depended from the other. 

; The count set it back again as he had found it, 
so that the place meant death to the first comer; 
and groped out of the catacomb like a sick man. 
The next day, riding in the Corso with the baron, 
he purposely betrayed a strong preoccupation. The 
other (as he had designed) inquired into the cause; 
and he (after some fencing) admitted that his 
spirits had been dashed by an unusual dream. This 
was calculated to draw on the baron, — a super- 
stitious man who affected the scorn of supersti- 
tion. Some rallying followed ; and then the count 
(as if suddenly carried away) called on his friend 
to beware, for it was of him that he had dreamed. 
You know enough of human nature, my excellent 
Mackellar, to be certain of one thing: I mean, 
that the baron did not rest till he had heard the 


268 


THE MASTER 


dream. The count (sure that he would never ! 
desist) kept him in play till his curiosity was 
highly inflamed, and then suffered himself with 
seeming reluctance to be overborne. ‘ I warn you/ 
says he, ‘ evil will come of it ; something tells me 
so. But since there is to be no peace either for 
you or me except on this condition, the blame be 
on your own head! This was the dream. I be- 
held you riding, I know not where, yet I think it 
must have been near Rome, for on your one hand 
was an ancient tomb and on the other a garden 
of evergreen trees. Methought I cried and cried 
upon you to come back in a very agony of terror; 
whether you heard me, I know not, but you went 
doggedly on. The road brought you to a desert 
place among ruins : where was a door in a hillside, 
and hard by the door a misbegotten pine. Here 
you dismounted (I still crying on you to beware), 
tied your horse to the pine-tree, and entered reso- 
lutely in by the door. Within it was dark; but in 
my dream I could still see you, and still besought 
you to hold back. You felt your way along the 
right-hand wall, took a branching passage to the 
right, and came to a little chamber, where was a 
well with a railing. At this (I know not why) 
my alarm for you increased a thousandfold, so 
that I seemed to scream myself hoarse with warn- 
ings, crying it was still time and bidding you be- 


OF BALLANTRAE 269 

gone at once from that vestibule. Such was the 
word I used in my dream, and it seemed then to 
have a clear significancy; but to-day and awake, 
I profess I know not what it means. To all my 
outcry you rendered not the least attention, leaning 
the while upon the rail and looking down intently 
in the water. And then there was made to you 
a communication, I do not think I even gathered 
what it was, but the fear of it plucked me clean 
out of my slumber, and I awoke shaking and sob- 
bing. And now/ continues the count, ‘ I thank 
you from my heart for your insistancy. This 
dream lay on me like a load ; and now I have told 
it in plain words and in the broad daylight, it 
seems no great matter.’ — ‘ I do not know,’ says 
the baron. ‘ It is in some points strange. A com- 
munication, did you say? Oh, it is an odd dream. 
It will make a story to amuse our friends.’ — ‘ I 
am not so sure,’ says the count. ‘ I am sensible of 
some reluctancy. Let us rather forget it.’ — 'By 
all means,’ says the baron. And (in fact) the 
dream was not again referred to. Some days 
after, the count proposed a ride in the fields, which 
the baron (since they were daily growing faster 
friends) very readily accepted. On the way back 
to Rome, the count led them insensibly by a par- 
ticular route. Presently he reined in his horse, 
clapped his hand before his eyes, and cried out 


270 


THE MASTER 


aloud. Then he showed his face again (which was 
now quite white, for he was a consummate actor) 
and stared upon the baron. ‘ What ails you ? ’ 
cries the baron. ‘ What is wrong with you ? ’ — 
‘ Nothing,’ cries the count. ‘ It is nothing. A 
seizure, I know not what. Let us hurry back to 
Rome.’ But in the meanwhile the baron had 
looked about him ; and there, on the left-hand 
side of the way as they went back to Rome, he 
saw a dusty by-road with a tomb upon the one 
hand and a garden of evergreen trees upon the 
other. — ‘Yes,’ says he, with a changed voice. 
‘ Let us by all means hurry back to Rome. I 
fear you are not well in health.’ — ‘Oh, for 
God’s sake ! ’ cries" the count, shuddering. ‘ Back 
to Rome and let me get to bed.’ They made 
their return with scarce a word; and the count, 
who should by rights have gone into society, took 
to his bed and gave out he had a touch of 
country fever. The next day the baron’s horse 
was found tied to the pine, but himself was never 
heard of from that hour. — And now, was that 
a murder ? ” says the Master, breaking sharply 
off. 

“ Are you sure he was a count? ” I asked. 

“ I am not certain of the title,” said he, “ but he 
was a gentleman of family: and the Lord deliver 
you, Mackellar, from an enemy so subtile ! ” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


271. 


These last words he spoke down at me smiling, 
from high above; the next, he was under my fee # . 
I continued to follow his evolutions with a childish 
fixity; they made me giddy and vacant, and I 
spoke as in a dream. 

“ He hated the baron with a great hatred? ” I 
asked. 

“ His belly moved when the man came near 
him,” said the Master. 

“ I have felt that same,” said I. 

“Verily!” cries the Master. “Here is news 
indeed! I wonder — do I flatter myself? or am 
I the cause of these ventral perturbations ? ” 

He was quite capable of choqsing out a graceful 
posture, even with no one to behold him but my- 
self, and all the more if there were any element 
of peril. He sat now with one knee flung across 
the other, his arms on his bosom, fitting the swing 
of the ship with an exquisite balance, such as a 
featherweight might overthrow. All at once I 
had the vision of my lord at the table with his 
head upon his hands; only now, when he showed 
me his countenance, it was heavy with reproach. 
The words of my own prayer — I were liker a 
man if I struck this creature down — shot at the 
same time into my memory. I called my energies 
together, and (the ship then heeling downward 
toward my enemy) thrust at him swiftly with my 


THE MASTER 


172 

foot. It was written I should have the guilt of this 
attempt without the profit. Whether from my 
own uncertainty or his incredible quickness, he 
escaped the thrust, leaping to his feet and catch- 
ing hold at the same moment of a stay. 

I do not know how long a time passed by: I 
lying where I was upon the deck, overcome with 
terror and remorse and shame: he standing with 
the stay in his hand, backed against the bulwarks, 
and regarding me with an expression singularly 
mingled. At last he spoke. 

“ Mackellar,” said he, “ I make no reproaches, 
but I offer you a bargain. On your side, I do not 
suppose you desire to have this exploit made pub- 
lic; on mine, I own to you freely I do not care 
to draw my breath in a perpetual terror of assassi- 
nation by the man I sit at meat with. Promise me 
— but no,” says he, breaking off, “ you are not 
yet in the quiet possession of your mind; you 
might think I had extorted the promise from your 
weakness; and I would leave no door open for 
casuistry to come in — that dishonesty of the con- 
scientious. Take time to meditate.” 

With that he made off up the sliding deck like 
a squirrel and plunged into the cabin. About half 
an hour later he returned : I still lying as he had 
left me. 

“ Now,” says he, “ will you give me your troth 


OF BALLANTRAE 


27 3 


as a Christian and a faithful servant of my 
brother’s, that I shall have no more to fear from 
your attempts ? ” 

“ I give it you,” said I. 

“ I shall require your hand upon it,” says he. 

“ You have the right to make conditions,'' I 
replied, and we shook hands. 

He sat down at once in the same place and the 
old perilous attitude. 

“ Hold on ! ” cried I, covering my eyes. “ I 
cannot bear to see you in that posture. The least 
irregularity of the sea might plunge you over- 
board.” 

“ You are highly inconsistent,” he replied, smil- 
ing, but doing as I asked. “ For all that, Mac- 
kellar, I would have you to know you have risen 
forty feet in my esteem. You think I cannot set 
a price upon fidelity? But why do you suppose I 
carry that Secundra Dass about the world with me ? 
Because he would die or do murder for me to- 
morrow; and I love him for it. Well, you may 
think it odd, but I like you the better for this after- 
noon’s ' performance. I thought you were mag- 
netised with the Ten Commandments; but no — 
God damn my soul ! ” — he cries, “ the old wife 
has blood in his body after all ! — Which does not 
change the fact,” he continued, smiling again, 

“ that you have done well to give your promise; 


274 THE MASTER 

for I doubt if you would ever shine in your new r 
trade.” 

“ I suppose,” said I, “ I should ask your par- 
don and God’s for my attempt. At any rate I 
have passed my word, which I will keep faith- 
fully. But when I think of those you perse- 
cute ” I paused. 

“ Life is a singular thing,” said he, “ and man- 
kind a very singular people. You suppose your- 
self to love my brother. I assure you it is merely 
custom. Interrogate your memory ; and when first 
you came to Durrisdeer, you will find you con- 
sidered him a dull, ordinary youth. He is as dull 
.and ordinary now, though not so young. Had you 
instead fallen in with me, you would to-day be 
as strong upon my side.” 

“ I would never say you were ordinary, Mr. 
Bally,” I returned ; “ but here you prove yourself 
dull. You have just shown your reliance on my 
word. In other terms, that is my conscience — the 
same which starts instinctively back from you, like 
the eye from a strong light.” 

“Ah!” says he, “but I mean otherwise. I 
mean, had I met you in my youth. You are to 
consider I was not always as I am to-day; nor 
(had I met in with a friend of your description) 
should I have ever been so.” 

“ Hut, Mr. Bally,” says I, “ you would have 


OF BALLANTRAE 275 

made a mock of me — you would never have spent 
ten civil words on such a squaretoes.” 

But he was now fairly started on his new course 
I of justification, with which he wearied me through- 
out the remainder of the passage. No doubt in 
the past he had taken pleasure to paint himself 
unnecessarily black, and made a vaunt of his wick- 
edness, bearing it for a coat of arms. Nor was he 
so illogical as to abate one item of his old con- 
fessions. “ But now that I know you are a human 
being,” he would say, “ I can take the trouble to 
explain myself. For I assure you I am human 
too, and have my virtues like my neighbours.” I 
say he wearied me, for I had only the one word to 
say in answer: twenty times I must have said it: 
“ Give up your present purpose and return with me 
to Durrisdeer; then I will believe you.” 

Thereupon he would shake his head at me. 
“ Ah, Mackellar, you might live a thousand years 
and never understand my nature,” he would say. 
“ This battle is now committed, the hour of re- 
flection quite past, the hour for mercy not yet come. 
It began between us when we span a coin in the 
hall of Durrisdeer now twenty years ago ; we have 
had our ups and downs, but never either of us 
dreamed of giving in; and as for me, when my 
glove is cast, life and honour go with it.” 

' !ig for your honour! ” I would say. “ And 


276 THE MASTER 

by your leave, these warlike similitudes are some- 
thing too high-sounding for the matter in hand. 
You want some dirty money, there is the bottom of 
your contention; and as for your means, what are 
they? — to stir up sorrow in a family that never 
harmed you, to debauch (if you can) your own 
born nephew, and to wring the heart of your born 
brother! A footpad that kills an old granny in 
a woollen mutch with a dirty bludgeon, and that 
for a shilling-piece and a paper of snuff — there 
is all the warrior that you are.” 

When I would attack him thus (or somewhat 
thus) he would smile and sigh like a man misunder- 
stood. Once, I remember, he defended himself 
more at large, and had some curious sophistries, 
worth repeating for a light upon his character. 

“ You are very like a civilian to think war con- 
sists in drums and banners,” said he. “ War (as 
the ancients said very wisely) is ultima ratio. J 
When we take our advantage unrelentingly, then 
we make war. Ah, Mackellar, you are a devil of 
a soldier in the steward’s room at Durrisdeer, or the 
tenants do you sad injustice! ” 

“ I think little of what war is or is not,” I 
replied. “ But you weary me with claiming my 
respect. Your brother is a good man, and you 
are a bad one — neither more nor less.” 

“ Had I been Alexander ” he began. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


277 

“ It is so we all dupe ourselves,” I cried. “ Had 
I been St. Paul, it would have been all one; I 
would have made the same hash of that career 
that you now see me making of my own.” 

“ I tell you,” he cried, bearing down my in- 
terruption, “ had I been the least petty chieftain 
in the highlands, had I been the least king of 
naked negroes in the African desert, my people 
would have adored me. A bad man, am I? Ah, 
but I was born for a good tyrant! Ask Secundra 
Dass; he will tell you I treat him like a son. Cast 
in your lot with me to-morrow, become my slave, 

: my chattel, a thing I can command as I command 
the powers of my own limbs and spirit — you will 
see no more that dark side that I turn upon the 
world in anger. I must have all or none. But 
where all is given, I give it back with usury. I 
have a kingly nature : there is my loss ! ” 

“ It has been hitherto rather the loss of others,” 
I remarked ; “ which seems a little on the hither 
side of royalty.” 

“ Tilly-vally ! ” cried he. “ Even now, I tell 
you I would spare that family in which you take 
so great an interest : yes, even now, — to-morrow 
I would leave them to their petty welfare, and 
disappear in that forest of cut-throats and thimble- 
riggers that we call the world. I would do it to- 
morrow ! ” says he. “ Only — only ” 


THE MASTER 


278 

“ Only what?” I asked. 

“ Only they must beg it on their bended knees. 
I think in public too,” he added, smiling. “ Indeed, 
Mackellar, I doubt if there be a hall big enough 
to serve my purpose for that act of reparation.” 

“Vanity, vanity!” I moralised. “To think 
that this great force for evil should be swayed by 
the same sentiment that sets a lassie mincing to 
her glass ! ” 

“ O, there are double words for everything ; 
the word that swells, the word that belittles: you 
cannot fight me with a word ! ” said he. “ You 
said the other day that I relied on your con- 
science: were I in your humour of detraction, I 
might say I built upon your vanity. It is your 
pretension to be un homme de parole; ’t is mine 
not to accept defeat. Call it vanity, call it virtue, 
call it greatness of soul — what signifies the ex- 
pression? But recognise in each of us a common 
strain; that we both live for an idea.” 

It will be gathered from so much familiar talk, 
and so much patience on both sides, that we now 
lived together upon excellent terms. Such was 
again the fact, and this time more seriously than 
before. Apart from disputations such as that 
which I have tried to reproduce, not only consid- 
eration reigned, but I am tempted to say even 
kindness. When I fell sick (as I did shortly after 


OF BALLANTRAE 279 

our great storm) he sat by my berth to entertain 
me with his conversation, and treated me with 
excellent remedies, which I accepted with secur- 
ity. Himself commented on the circumstance. 
“ You see,” says he, “ you begin to know me better. 
A very little while ago, upon this lonely ship, where 
no one but myself has any smattering of science, 
you would have made sure I had designs upon 
your life. And observe, it is since I found you had 
designs upon my own, that I have shown you most 
respect. You will tell me if this speaks of a small 
mind.” I found little to reply. In so far as re- 
garded myself, I believed him to mean well; I am 
perhaps the more a dupe of his dissimulation, but 
I believed (and I still believe) that he regarded 
me with genuine kindness. Singular and sad fact ! 
so soon as this change began, my animosity abated, 
and these haunting visions of my master passed 
utterly away. So that, perhaps, there was truth in 
the man’s last vaunting word to me, uttered on the 
second day of July, when our long voyage was at 
last brought almost to an end, and we lay be- 
calmed at the sea-end of the vast harbour of New 
York in a gasping heat which was presently ex- 
changed for a surprising waterfall of rain. I stood 
on the poop regarding the green shores near at 
hand, and now and then the light smoke of the 
little town, our destination. And as I was even 


28 o 


THE MASTER 


then devising how to steal a march on my fa- 
miliar enemy, I was conscious of a shade of em- 
barrassment when he approached me with his hand 
extended. 

“ I am now to bid you farewell,” said he, “ and 
that for ever. For now you go among my enemies, 
where all your former prejudices will revive. I 
never yet failed to charm a person when I wanted ; 
even you, my good friend — to call you so for once 
— even you have now a very different portrait 
of me in your memory, and one that you will never 
quite forget. The voyage has not lasted long 
enough, or I should have wrote the impression 
deeper. But now all is at an end, and we are 
again at war. Judge by this little interlude how 
dangerous I am ; and tell those fools ” — point- 
ing with his finger to the town — “ to think twice 
and thrice before they set me at defiance.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 281 


PASSAGES AT NEW YORK 

I HAVE mentioned I was resolved to steal 
a march upon the Master; and this, with 
the complicity of Captain MacMurtrie, was 
mighty easily effected : a boat being partly loaded 
on the one side of our ship and the Master placed 
on board of it, the while a skiff put off from the 
other carrying me alone. I had no more trouble 
in finding a direction to my lord’s house, whither 
I went at top speed, and which I found to be on 
the outskirts of the place, a very suitable man- 
sion, in a fine garden, with an extraordinary large 
barn, byre and stable all in one. It was here 
my lord was walking when I arrived ; indeed 
it had become his chief place of frequentation, 
and his mind was now filled with farming. I\ 
burst in upon him breathless, and gave him 
my news : which was indeed no news at all, 
several ships having outsailed the Nonesuch in 
the interval. 

“ We have been expecting you long,” said my 
lord ; “ and indeed, of late days, ceased to expect 
you any more. I am glad to take your hand 


2 82 


THE MASTER 


again, Mackellar. I thought you had been at the 
bottom of the sea.” ! 

“ Ah, my lord, would God I had ! ” cried I. 

“ Things would have been better for yourself.” 

“ Not in the least,” says he grimly. “ I could 
not ask better. There is a long score to pay, and 
now — at last — I can begin to pay it.” 

I cried out against his security. 

“ O,” says he, “ this is not Durrisdeer, and I 
have taken my precautions. His reputation awaits 
him, I have prepared a welcome for my brother. 
Indeed fortune has served me; for I found here 
a merchant of Albany who knew him after the 
*45 and had mighty convenient suspicions of a 
murder: some one of the name of Chew it was, 
another Albanian. No one here will be surprised 
if I deny him my door; he will not be suffered 
to address my children, nor even to salute my 
wife: as for myself, I make so much exception 
for a brother that he may speak to me. I should 
lose my pleasure else,” says my lord, rubbing his 
palms. 

Presently he bethought himself, and set men off 
running, with billets, to summon the magnates of 
the province. I cannot recall what pretext he 
employed; at least it was successful; and when 
our ancient enemy appeared upon the scene, he 
found my lord pacing in front of his house under 


OF BALLANTRAE 283 

some trees of shade, with the governor upon one 
hand and various notables upon the other. My 
lady, who was seated in the verandah, rose with 
a very pinched expression and carried her children 
into the house. 

The Master, well dressed and with an elegant 
w^alking-sword, bowed to the company in a hand- 
some manner and nodded to my lord with famil- 
iarity. My lord did not accept the salutation, 
but looked upon his brother with bended brows 

“ Well, sir,” says he, at last, “ what ill wind 
I brings you hither of all places, where (to our 
common disgrace) your reputation has preceded 
you?” 

“ Your lordship is pleased to be civil,” cries 
the Master, with a fine start. 

“ I am pleased to be very plain,” returned my 
lord ; “ because it is needful you should clearly 
understand your situation. At home, where you 
were so little known, it was still possible to keep 
appearances : that would be quite vain in this 
province; and I have to tell you that I am quite 
resolved to wash my hands of you. You have 
already ruined me almost to the door, as you 
ruined my father 'before me; — whose heart you 
also broke. Your crimes escape the law; but my 
friend the governor has promised protection to 
my family. Have a care, sir ! ” cries my lord, 


THE MASTER 


284 

shaking his cane at him : “ if you are observed to 
utter two words to any of my innocent house- 
hold, the law shall be stretched to make you smart 
for it.” 

“ Ah ! ” says the Master, very slowly. “ And 
so this is the advantage of a foreign land ! 
These gentlemen are unacquainted with our story, 
I perceive. They do not know that I am the 
Lord Durrisdeer; they do not know you are my 
younger brother, sitting in my place under a 
sworn family compact; they do not know (or 
they would not be seen with you in familiar cor- 
respondence) that every acre is mine before God 
Almighty — and every doit of the money you 
withhold from me, you do it as a thief, a perjurer 
and a disloyal brother ! ” 

“ General Clinton,” I cried, “ do not listen to 
his lies. I am the steward of the estate, and there 
is not one word of truth in it. The man is a for- 
feited rebel turned into a hired spy: there is his 
story in two words.” 

It was thus that (in the heat of the moment) I 
let slip his infamy. 

“ Fellow,” said the governor, turning his face 
sternly on the Master, “ I know more of you than 
you think for. We have some broken ends of your 
adventures in the provinces, which you will do 
very well not to drive me to investigate. There 


OF BALLANTRAE 285 

j 

is the disappearance of Mr. Jacob Chew with all 
his merchandise; there is the matter of where 
you came ashore from with so much money and 
jewels, when you were picked up by a Bermudan 
out of Albany. Believe me, if I let these mat- 
ters lie, it is in commiseration for your family 
and out of . respect for my valued friend, Lord 
Durrisdeer.” 

There was a murmur of applause from the 
provincials. 

“ I should have remembered how a title would 
shine out in such a hole as this,” says the Master, 
white as a sheet : “ no matter how unjustly come 
by. It remains for me then to die at my lord’s 
door, where my dead body will form a very cheer- 
ful ornament.” 

“ Away with your affectations ! ” cries my lord. 
“ You know very well I have no such meaning; 
only to protect myself from calumny and my home 
from your intrusion. I offer you a choice. Either 
I shall pay your passage home on the first ship, 
when you may perhaps be able to resume your 
occupations under government, although God 
knows I would rather see you on the highway! 
Or, if that likes you not, stay here and welcome! 
I have inquired the least sum on which body and 
soul can be decently kept together in New York; 
so much you shall have, paid weekly; and if you 


286 


THE MASTER 


cannot labour with your hands to better it, high 
time you should betake yourself to learn! The 
condition is, that you speak with no member of 
my family except myself,” he added. 

I do not think I have ever seen any man so 
pale as was the Master; but he was erect and his 
mouth firm. 

“ I have been met here with some very un- 
merited insults,” said he, “ from which I have 
certainly no idea to take refuge by flight. Give 
me your pittance; I take it without shame, for it 
is mine already — like the shirt upon your back, 
and I choose to stay until these gentlemen shall 
understand me better. Already they must spy 
the cloven hoof ; since with all your pretended 
eagerness for the family • honour, you take a 
pleasure to degrade it in my person.” 

“ This is all very fine,” says my lord ; “ but to 
us who know you of old, you must be sure it 
signifies nothing. You take that alternative out 
of which you think that you can make the most. 
Take it, if you can, in silence: it will serve you 
better in the long run, you may believe me, than 
this ostentation of ingratitude.” 

“ O, gratitude, my lord ! ” cries the Master, 
with a mounting intonation and his forefinger 
very conspicuously lifted up. “ Be at rest : it will 
not fail you. It now remains that I should salute 


OF BALLANTRAE 287 

these gentlemen whom we have wearied with our 
family affairs.” 

And he bowed to each in succession, settled his 
walking-sword, and took himself off, leaving every 
one amazed at his behaviour, and me not less so 
! at my lord’s. 

We were now to enter on a changed phase of 
this family division. The Master was by no 
manner of means so helpless as my lord supposed, 
having at his hand and entirely devoted to his 
service an excellent artist in all sorts of gold- 
smith work. With my lord’s allowance, which 
was not so scanty as he had described it, the 
pair could support life; and all the earnings of 
Secundra Dass might be laid upon one side for 
any future purpose. That this was done, I have 
no doubt. It was in all likelihood the Master’s 
design to gather a sufficiency, and then proceed 
in quest of that treasure which he had buried 
long before among the mountains; to which, if he 
had confined himself, he would have been more 
happily inspired. But unfortunately for himself 
and all of us, he took counsel of his anger. The 
public disgrace of his arrival (which I sometimes 
wonder he could manage to survive) rankled in 
his bones; he was in that humour when a man 
(in the words of the old adage) will cut off his 


288 


THE MASTER 


nose to spite his face; and he must make himself 
a public spectacle, in the hopes that some of the 
disgrace might spatter on my lord. 

He chose, in a poor quarter of the town, a 
lonely, small house of boards, overhung with some 5 
acacias. It was furnished in front with a sort of 
hutch opening, like that of a dog’s kennel, but 
about as high as a table from the ground, in which 
the poor man that built it had formerly displayed 
some wares; and it was this which took the Mas- 
ter’s fancy and possibly suggested his proceedings. 

It appears, on board the pirate ship, he had ac- 
quired some quickness with the needle: enough 
at least to play the part of tailor in the public 
eye; which was all that was required by the na- j 
ture of his vengeance. A placard was hung above 
the hutch, bearing these words in something of j 
the following disposition : 

James Durie 

formerly MASTER of BALLANTRAE 
Clothes Neatly Clouted. 

SECUNDRA DASS 
Decayed Gentleman of India 

FINE GOLDSMITH WORK. 

Underneath this, when he had a job, my 
gentleman sat withinside tailor-wise and busily 


OF BALLANTRAE 289 

stitching, I say, when he had a job; but such 
customers as came were rather for Secundra, and 
the Master’s sewing would be more in the man- 
ner of Penelope’s. He could never have designed 
to gain even butter to his bread by such a means 
of livelihood: enough for him, that there was the 
name of Durie dragged in the dirt on the placard, 
and the sometime heir of that proud family set 
up cross-legged in public for a reproach upon his 
brother’s meanness. And in so far his device suc- 
ceeded, that there was murmuring in the town 
and a party formed highly inimical to my lord. 
My lord’s favour with the governor laid him more 
open on the other side; my lady (who was never 
so well received in the colony) met with painful 
innuendoes; in a party of women, where it would 
be the topic most natural to introduce, she was 
almost debarred from the naming of needlework; 
and I have seen her return with a flushed coun- 
tenance and vow that she would go abroad no 
more. 

In the meanwhile, my lord dwelled in his de- 
cent mansion, immersed in farming: a popular 
man with his intimates, and careless or uncon- 
scious of the rest. He laid on flesh ; had a bright, 
busy face; even the heat seemed to prosper with 
him; and my lady (in despite of her own annoy- 
ances) daily blessed heaven her father should 
19 


290 


THE MASTER 


have left her such a paradise. She had looked on 
from a window upon the Master’s humiliation ; 
and from that hour appeared to feel at ease. I 
was not so sure myself; as time went on there 
seemed to me a something not quite wholesome 
in my lord’s condition; happy he was, beyond a 
doubt, but the grounds of this felicity were secret; 
even in the bosom of his family, he brooded with 
manifest delight upon some private thought; and 
I conceived at last the suspicion (quite unworthy 
of us both) that he kept a mistress somewhere 
in the town. Yet he went little abroad, and his 
day was very fully occupied; indeed there was 
but a single period, and that pretty early in the 
morning while Mr. Alexander was at his lesson- 
book, of which I was not certain of the dispo- 
sition. It should be borne in mind, in the defence 
of that which I now did, that I was always in 
some fear my lord was not quite justly in his 
reason; and with our enemy sitting so still in the 
same town with us, I did well to be upon my 
guard. Accordingly I made a pretext, had the 
' hour changed at which I taught Mr. Alexander 
the foundation of cyphering and the mathematic, 
and set myself instead to dog my master’s foot- 
steps. 

Every morning, fair or foul, he took his gold- 
headed cane, set his hat on the back of his head 


OF BALLANTRAE 


291 


— a recent habitude, which I thought to indicate 
a burning brow — and betook himself to make 
a certain circuit. At the first his way was among 
pleasant trees and beside a graveyard, where he 
would sit awhile, if the day were fine, in medi- 
tation. Presently the path turned down to the 
water-side and came back along the harbour front 
and past the Master’s booth. As he approached 
this second part of his circuit, my Lord Durris- 
deer began to pace more leisurely, like a man de- 
lighted with the air and scene; and before the 
booth, half-way between that and the water’s 
edge, would pause a little leaning on his staff. 
It was the hour when the Master sate within upon 
his board and plied his needle. So these two 
brothers would gaze upon each other with hard 
faces; and then my lord move on again, smiling 
to himself. 

It was but twice that I must stoop to that un- 
grateful necessity of playing spy. I was then cer- 
tain of my lord’s purpose in his rambles and of 
the secret source of his delight. Here was his 
mistress: it was hatred and not love that gave 
him healthful colours. Some moralists might 
have been relieved by the discovery, I confess that 
I was dismayed. I found this situation of two 
brethren not only odious in itself, but big with 
possibilities of further evil; and I made it my 


THE MASTER 


292 

practice, in so far as many occupations would 
allow, to go by a shorter path and be secretly 
present at their meeting. 

Coming down one day a little late, after I had 
been near a week prevented, I was struck with 
surprise to find a new development. I should say 
there was a bench against the Master’s house, 
where customers might sit to parley with the shop- 
man; and here I found my lord seated, nursing 
his cane and looking pleasantly forth upon the 
bay. Not three feet from him sate the Master * 
stitching. Neither spoke; nor (in this new situ- 
ation) did my lord so much as cast a glance upon 
his enemy. He tasted his neighbourhood. I must 
suppose, less indirectly in the bare proximity of 
person; and without doubt, drank deep of hateful 
pleasures. 

He had no sooner come away than I openly 
joined him. 

“ My lord, my lord,” said I, “ this is no man- 
ner of behaviour.” 

“ I grow fat upon it,” he replied ; and not merely 
the words, which were strange enough, but the 
whole character of his expression shocked me. 

“ I warn you, my lord, against this indulgency 
of evil feeling,” said I. “ I know not to which it 
is more perilous, the soul or the reason : but you 
go the way to murder both.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 


293 

“ You cannot understand,” said he. “ You had 
never such mountains of bitterness upon your 
heart.” 

“ And if it were no more,” I added, “ you will 
surely goad the man to some extremity.” 

“ To the contrary : I am breaking his spirit,” 
says my lord. 

Every morning for hard upon a week, my lord 
took his same place upon the bench. It was a 
pleasant place, under the green acacias, with a 
sight upon the bay and shipping, and a sound 
(from some way off) of mariners singing at their 
employ. Here the two sate without speech or 
any external movement, beyond that of the needle 
or the Master biting off a thread, for he still 
clung to his pretence of industry ; and here I made 
a point to join them, wondering at myself and 
my companions. If any of my lord’s friends went 
by, he would hail them cheerfully, and cry out 
he was there to give some good advice to his 
brother, who was now (to his delight) grown 
quite industrious. And even this, the Master ac- 
cepted with a steady countenance: what was in 
his mind, God knows, or perhaps Satan only. 

All of a sudden, on a still day of what they 
call the Indian Summer, when the woods were 
changed into gold and pink and scarlet, the Master 


THE MASTER 


294 

laid down his needle and burst into a fit of merri- 
ment. I think he must have been preparing it a 
long while in silence, for the note in itself was 
pretty naturally pitched; but breaking suddenly 
from so extreme a silpnce and in circumstances 
so averse from mirth, it sounded ominously on 
my ear. 

“ Henry,” said he, “ I have for once made a 
false step, and for once you have had the wit to 
profit by it. The farce of the cobbler ends to-day ; 
and I confess to you (with my compliments) that 
you have had the best of it. Blood will out; and 
you have certainly a choice idea of how to make 
yourself unpleasant.” 

Never a word said my lord; it was just as 
though the Master had not broken silence. 

“ Come,” resumed the Master, “ do not be sulky, 
it will spoil your attitude. You can now afford 
(believe me) to be a little gracious; for I have 
not merely a defeat to accept. I had meant to 
continue this performance till I had gathered 
enough money for a certain purpose; I confess 
ingenuously, I have not the courage. You natu- 
rally desire my absence from this town; I have 
come round by another way to the same idea. 
And I have a proposition to make; or if your 
lordship prefers, a favour to ask.” 

“ Ask it,” says my lord. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


295 


“ You may have heard that I had once in this 
country a considerable treasure/' returned the Mas- 
ter : “ it matters not whether or no — such is the 
fact ; and I was obliged to bury it in a spot of 
which I have sufficient indications. To the re- 
covery of this, has my ambition now come down; 
and as it is my own, you will not grudge 
it me." 

“ Go and get it," says my lord. “ I make no 
opposition." 

“ Yes," said the Master, “ but to do so I must 
find men and carriage. The way is long and 
rough, and the country infested with wild Indians. 
Advance me only so much as shall be needful : 
either as a lump sum,, in lieu of my allowance; 
or if you prefer it, as a loan, which I shall repay 
on my return. And then, if you so decide, you 
may have seen the last of me." 

My lord stared him steadily in the eyes; there 
was a hard smile upon his face, but he uttered 
nothing. 

“ Henry," said the Master, with a formidable 
quietness, and drawing at the same time some- 
what back — “ Henry, I had the honour to address 
you." 

“ Let us be stepping homeward," says my lord 
to me, who was plucking at his sleeve; and with 
that he rose, stretched himself, settled his hat, and 


THE MASTER 


296 


still without a syllable of response, began to walk 
steadily along the shore. 

I hesitated awhile between the two brothers, 
so serious a climax did we seem to have reached. 
But the Master had resumed his occupation, his 
eyes lowered, his hand seemingly as deft as ever; 
and I decided to pursue my lord. 

“ Are you mad ? ” I cried, so soon as I had 
overtook him. “ Would you cast away so fair an 
opportunity ? ” 

“ Is it possible you should still believe in 
him ? ” inquired my lord, almost with a sneer. 

“ I wish him forth of this town,” I cried. “ I 
' wish him anywhere and anyhow but as he is.” 

“ I have said my say, ’’.returned my lord, “ and 
you have said yours. There let it rest.” 

But I was bent on dislodging the Master. That 
sight of him patiently returning to his needlework 
was more than my imagination could digest. There 
was never a man made, and the Master the least 
of any, that could accept so long a series of in- 
sults. The air smelt blood to me. And I vowed 
there should be no neglect of mine if, through any 
chink of possibility, crime could be yet turned 
aside. That same day, therefore, I came to my 
lord in his business room, where he sat upon some 
trivial occupation. 

“ My lord,” said I, “ I have found a suitable 


OF BALLANTRAE 297 

investment for my small economies. But these 
are unhappily in Scotland; it will take some time 
to lift them, and the affair presses. Could your 
lordship see his way to advance me the amount 
against my note ? ” 

He read me awhile with keen eyes. “ I have 
never inquired into the state of your affairs, Mac- 
kellar,” says he. “ Beyond the amount of your 
caution, you may not be worth a farthing, for 
what I know.” 

“ I have been a long while in your service, and 
never told a lie, nor yet asked a favour for my- 
self,” said I, “ until to-day.” 

“ A favour for the Master,” he returned 
quietly. “ Do you take me for a fool, Mackellar ? 
Understand it once and for all ; I treat this beast in 
my own way; fear nor favour shall not move me; 
and before I am hoodwinked, it will require a 
trickster less transparent than yourself. I ask ser- 
vice, loyal service; not that you should make and 
mar behind my back, and steal my own money 
to defeat me.” 

“ My lord,” said I, “ these are very unpardon- 
able expressions.” 

“ Think once more, Mackellar,” he replied ; 
“ and you will see they fit the fact. It is your own 
subterfuge that is unpardonable. Deny (if you 
can) that you designed this money to evade my 


THE MASTER 


298 

orders with, and I will ask your pardon freely. 

If you cannot, you must have the resolution to 
hear your conduct go by its own name.” 

“ If you think I had any design but to save j 
you ...” I began. 

“ O, my old friend,” said he, “ you know very 
well what I think! Here is my hand to you with 
all my heart ; but of money, not one rap.” 

Defeated upon this side, I went straight to my 
room, wrote a letter, ran with it to the harbour, 
for I knew a ship was on the point of sailing: 
and came to the Master’s door a little before dusk. 
Entering without the form of any knock, I found 
him sitting with his Indian at a simple meal of 
maize porridge with some milk. The house within 
was clean and poor ; only a few books upon a shelf 
distinguished it, and (in one corner) Secundra’s 
little bench. 

“ Mr. Bally,” said I, “ I have near five hundred 
pounds laid by in Scotland, the economies of a 
hard life. A letter goes by yon ship to have it 
lifted; have so much patience till the return ship 
comes in, and it is all yours, upon the same con- 
dition you offered to my lord this morning.” 

He rose from the table, came forward, took 
me by the shoulders, and looked me in the face, 
smiling. 

“ And yet you are very fond of money ! ” said 


OF BALLANTRAE 


299 

he. “ And yet you love money beyond all things 
else, except my brother ! ” 

“ I fear old age and poverty,” said I, “ which 
is another matter.” 

“ I will never quarrel for a name. Call it so ! ” 
he replied. “ Ah, Mackellar, Mackellar, if this 
were done from any love to me, how gladly would 
I close upon your offer ! ” 

“ And yet,” I eagerly answered — “ I say it to 
my shame, but I cannot see you in this poor place 
without compunction. It is not my single thought, 
nor my first ; and yet it ’s there ! I would gladly 
see you delivered. I do not offer it in love, and 
far from that ; but as God judges me — and I 
wonder at it too ! — quite without enmity.” 

“ Ah,” says he, still holding my shoulders and 
now gently shaking me, “ you think of me more 
than you suppose. ‘ And I wonder at it too,’ ” 
he added, repeating my expression and I suppose 
* something of my voice. “ You are an honest man, 
and for that cause I spare you.” 

“ Spare me?” I cried. 

“ Spare you,” he repeated, letting me go and 
turning away. And then, fronting me once more : 
“ You little know what I would do with it, Mac- 
kellar! Did you think I had swallowed my de- 
feat indeed? Listen: my life has been a series of 
unmerited cast-backs. That fool, Prince Charlie, 


3 °° 


THE MASTER 


mismanaged a most promising affair: there fell 
my first fortune. In Paris I had my foot once 
more high upon the ladder: that time it was an 
accident, a letter came to the wrong hand, and 
I was bare again. A third time, I found my op- 
portunity; I built up a place for myself in India 
with an infinite patience; and then Clive came, 
my rajah was swallowed up, and I escaped out 
of the convulsion, like another /Eneas, with Se- 
cundra Dass upon my back. Three times I have 
had my hand upon the highest station; and I am 
not yet three and forty. I know the world as few 
men kpow it when they come to die, court and 
camp, the east and the west; I know where to go, 
I see a thousand openings. I am now at the 
height of my resources, sound of health, of in- 
ordinate ambition. Well, all this I resign; I care 
not if I die and the world never hear of me; I 
care only for one thing, and that I will have. 
Mind yourself : lest, when the roof falls, you too 
should be crushed under the ruins/’ 

As I came out of his house, all hope of inter- 
vention quite destroyed, I was aware of a stir on 
the harbour-side, and raising my eyes, there was a 
great ship newly come to anchor. It seems strange 
I could have looked upon her with so much indif- 
ference, for she brought death to the brothers of 


OF BALLANTRAE 301 

Durrisdeer. After all the desperate episodes of 
this contention, the insults, the opposing interests, 
the fraternal duel in the shrubbery, it was reserved 
for some poor devil in Grub Street, scribbling for 
his dinner and not caring what he scribbled, to 
cast a spell across four thousand miles of the salt 
sea, and send forth both these brothers into sav- 
age and wintry deserts, there to die. But such 
a thought was distant from my mind; and while 
all the provincials were fluttered about me by the 
unusual animation of their port, I passed through- 
out their midst on my return homeward, quite 
absorbed in the recollection of my visit and the 
Master’s speech. 

The same night there was brought to us from 
the ship a little packet of pamphlets. The next 
day, my lord was under engagement to go with 
the governor upon some party of pleasure; the 
time was nearly due, and I left him for a moment 
alone in his room and skimming through the 
pamphlets. When I returned his head had fallen 
upon the table, his arms lying abroad amongst the 
crumpled papers. 

“ My lord, my lord ! ” I cried as I ran forward, 
for I supposed he was in some fit. 

He sprang up like a figure upon wires, his coun- 
tenance deformed with fury, so that in a strange 
place I should scarce have known him. His hand 


THE MASTER 


302 

at the same time flew above his head, as though to 
strike me down. “ Leave me alone ! ” he screeched ; 
and I fled, as fast as my shaking legs would bear 
me, for my lady. She too lost no time; but when 
we returned he had the door locked within, and 
only cried to us from the other side to leave him 
be. We looked in each other’s faces, very white: 
each supposing the blow had come at last. 

“ I will write to the governor to excuse him,” 
says she. “ We must keep our strong friends.” 
But when she took up the pen, it flew out of her 
fingers. “ I cannot write,” said she. “ Can you? ” 
“ I will make a shift, my lady,” said I. 

She looked over me as I wrote. “ That will do,” 
she said, when I had done. “ Thank God, Mac- 
kellar, I have you to lean upon! But what can it 
be now ? what, what can it be ? ” 

In my own mind, I believed there was no ex- 
planation possible and none required: it was my 
fear that the man’s madness had now simply burst 
forth its way, like the long-smothered flames of a 
volcano; but to this (in mere mercy to my lady) 
I durst not give expression. 

“ It is more to the purpose to consider our own 
behaviour,” said I. “ Must we leave him there 
alone ? ” 

“ I do not dare disturb him,” she replied. 
“Nature may know best; it may be nature tW 


OF BALLANTRAE 303 

cries to be alone ; — and we grope in the dark. 

0 yes, I would leave him as he is.” 

“ I will then despatch this letter, my lady, and 
return here, if you please, to sit with you,” said I. 

“ Pray do,” cries my lady. 

All afternoon we sat together, mostly in silence, 
watching my lord’s door. My own mind was busy 
with the scene that had just passed, and its singular 
resemblance to my vision. I must say a word upon 
this, for the story has gone abroad with great ex- 
aggeration, and I have even seen it printed and my 
| own name referred to for particulars. So much 
was the same: here was my lord in a room, with 
his head upon the table, and when he raised his 
face, it wore such an expression as distressed me 
to the soul. But the room was different, my lord’s 
attitude at the table not at all the same, and his 
face, when he disclosed it, expressed a painful 
degree of fury instead of that haunting despair 
which had always (except once, already referred 
to) characterised it in the vision. There is the 
whole truth at last before the public; and if the 
differences be great, the coincidence was yet enough 
to fill me with uneasiness. All afternoon, as I say, 

1 sat and pondered upon this quite to myself ; for 
my lady had trouble of her own, and it was my 
last thought to vex her with fancies. About the 
midst of our time of waiting, she conceived an 


304 


THE MASTER 


ingenious scheme, had Mr. Alexander fetched and 
bid him knock at his father’s door. My lord sent 
the boy about his business, but without the least 
violence whether of manner or expression ; so that 
I began to entertain a hope the fit was over. 

At last, as the night fell and I was lighting a 
lamp that stood there trimmed, the door opened 
and my lord stood within upon the threshold. The 
light was not so strong that we could read his 
countenance; when he spoke, methought his voice 
a little altered but yet perfectly steady. 

“ Mackellar,” said he, “ carry this note to its 
destination with your own hand. It is highly pri- 
vate. Find the person alone when you deliver it.” 

“ Henry,” says my lady, “ you are not ill ? ” 

“ No, no,” says he, querulously, “ I am occupied. 
Not at all; I am only occupied. It is a singular 
thing a man must be supposed to be ill when he 
has any business! Send me supper to this room, 
and a basket of wine: I expect the visit of a 
friend. Otherwise I am not to be disturbed.” 

And with that he once more shut himself in. 

The note was addressed to one Captain Harris, 
at a tavern on the portside. I knew Harris (by 
reputation) for a dangerous adventurer, highly 
suspected of piracy in the past, and now following 
the rude business of an Indian trader. What my 
lord should have to say to him, or he to my lord, 


OF BALLANTRAE 305 

it passed my imagination to conceive : or yet how 
my lord had heard of him, unless by a disgraceful 
trial from which the man was recently escaped. 
Altogether I went upon the errand with reluctance, 
and from the little I saw of the captain, returned 
from it with sorrow. I found him in a foul-smell- 
ing chamber, sitting by a guttering candle and an 
empty bottle; he had the remains of a military 
carriage, or rather perhaps it was an affectation, 
for his manners were low. 

“ Tell my lord, with my service, that I will wait 
upon his lordship in the inside of half an hour,” 
says he, when he had read the note ; and then had 
the servility, pointing to his empty bottle, to pro- 
pose that I should buy him liquor. 

Although I returned with my best speed, the 
Captain followed close upon my heels, and he 
stayed late into the night. The cock was crowing 
a second time when I saw (from my chamber 
window) my lord lighting him to the gate, both 
men very much affected with their potations and 
sometimes leaning one upon the other to confabu- 
late. Yet the next morning my lord was abroad 
again early with a hundred pounds of money in 
his pocket. I never supposed that he returned 
with it; and yet I was quite sure it did not find 
its way to the Master, for I lingered all morning 
within view of the booth. That was the last time 


THE MASTER 


306 

my Lord Durrisdeer passed his own enclosure till 
we left New York; he walked in his barn or sat 
and talked with his family, all much as usual ; but 
the town saw nothing of him, and his daily vis- 
its to the Master seemed forgotten. Nor yet did 
Harris reappear; or not until the end. 

I was now much oppressed with a sense of the 
mysteries in which we had begun to move. It was 
plain, if only from his change of habitude, my lord 
had something on his mind of a grave nature ; but 
what it was, whence it sprang, or why he should 
now keep the house and garden, I could make no 
guess at. It was clear, even to probation, the 
pamphlets had some share in this revolution; I 
read all I could find, and they were all extremely 
insignificant and of the usual kind of party scur- 
rility; even to a high politician, I could spy out 
no particular matter of offence, and my lord was 
a man rather indifferent on public questions. The 
truth is, the pamphlet which was the spring of 
this affair, lay all the time on my lord’s bosom. 
There it was that I found it at last, after he was 
dead, in the midst of the north wilderness: in 
such a place, in such dismal circumstances, I was 
to read for the first time these idle, lying words 
of a whig pamphleteer declaiming against indul- 
gency to Jacobites : “ Another notorious Rebel, the 
M r of B e, is to have his Title restored,” 


OF BALLANTRAE 307 

the passage ran. “ This Business has been long 
in hand, since he rendered some very disgraceful 
Services in Scotland and France. His Brother, 

L d D r, is known to be no better than 

himself in Inclination; and the supposed Heir, 
who is now to be set aside, was bred up in the 
most detestable Principles. In the old. Phrase, it 
is six of the one and half a dozen of the other; 
but the Favour of such a Reposition is too ex- 
treme to be passed over.” A man in his right 
wits could not have cared two straws for a tale 
so manifestly false; that government should ever 
entertain the notion, was inconceivable to any 
reasoning creature, unless possibly the fool that 
penned it; and my lord, though never brilliant, 
was ever remarkable for sense. That he should 
credit such a rodomontade, and carry the pamphlet 
on his bosom and the words in his heart, is the 
clear proof of the man’s lunacy. Doubtless the 
mere mention of Mr. Alexander, and the threat 
directly held out against the child’s succession, 
precipitated that which had so long impended. 
Or else my master had been truly mad for a 
long time, and we were too dull or too much used 
to him, and did not perceive the extent of his 
infirmity. 

About a week after the day of the pamphlets I 
was late upon the harbour-side, and took a turn 


THE MASTER 


30 8 

towards the Master's, as I often did. The door 
opened, a flood of light came forth upon the road, 
and I beheld a man taking his departure with 
friendly salutations. I cannot say how singularly 
I was shaken to recognise the adventurer Harris. 
I could not but conclude it was the hand of my 
lord that had brought him there ; and prolonged 
my walk in very serious and apprehensive thought. 
It was late when I came home, and there was my 
lord making up his portmanteau for a voyage. 

“ Why do you come so late ? ” he cried. 
“ We leave to-morrow for Albany, you and I 
together; and it is high time you were about 
your preparations.” 

“For Albany, my lord?” I cried. “And for 
what earthly purpose ? ” 

“ Change of scene,” said he. 

And my lady, who appeared to have been weep- 
ing, gave me the signal to obey without more 
parley. She told me a little later (when we found 
occasion to exchange some words) that he had 
suddenly announced his intention after a visit 
from Captain Harris, and her best endeavours, 
whether to dissuade him from the journey or to 
elicit some explanation of its purpose, had alike 
proved unavailing. 


OF BALLANTRAE 


,309 


THE JOURNEY IN THE 
WILDERNESS 

W E made a prosperous voyage up that 
fine river of the Hudson, the weather 
grateful, the hills singularly beautified 
with the colours of the autumn. At Albany we 
had our residence at an inn, where I was not so 
blind and my lord not so cunning but what I could 
see he had some design to hold me prisoner. The 
work he found for me to do was not so pressing 
that we should transact it apart from necessary 
papers in the chamber of an inn; nor was it of 
such importance that I should be set upon as many 
as four or five scrolls of the same document. I 
submitted in appearance ; but I took private meas- 
ures on my own side, and had the news of the 
town communicated to me daily by the politeness 
of our host. In this way I received at last a piece 
of intelligence for which, I may say, I had been 
waiting. Captain Harris (I was told) with “ Mr. 
Mountain the trader ” had gone by up the river 
in a boat. I would have feared the landlord’s eye, 
so strong the sense of some complicity upon my 


3 l ° 


THE MASTER 


master’s part oppressed me. But I made out to 
say I had some knowledge of the captain, although 
none of Mr. Mountain, and to inquire who else 
was of the party. My informant knew not; Mr. 
Mountain had come ashore upon some needful pur- 
chases; had gone round the town buying, drink- 
ing, and prating; and it seemed the party went 
upon some likely venture, for he had spoken much 
of great things he would do when he returned. 
No more was known, for none of the rest had 
come ashore, and it seemed they were pressed for 
time to reach a certain spot before the snow should 
fall. 

And sure enough, the next day, there fell a 
sprinkle even in Albany ; but it passed as it came, 
and was but a reminder of what lay before us. 
I thought of it lightly then, knowing so little ar 
I did of that inclement province: the retrospect 
is different; and I wonder at times if some ot 
the horror of these events which I must now re 
hearse flowed not from the foul skies and savage 
winds to which we were exposed, and the agony 
of cold that we must suffer. 

The boat having passed by, I thought at first 
we should have left the town. But no such mat- 
ter. My lord continued his stay in Albany, where 
he had no ostensible affairs, and kept me by him, 
far from my due employment, and making a pre- 


OF BALLANTRAE 


3 1 1 

tence of occupation. It is upon this passage I 
expect, and perhaps deserve, censure. I was not 
so dull but what I had my own thoughts. I could 
not see the master entrust himself into the hands 
of Harris, and not suspect some under-hand con- 
trivance. Harris bore a villainous reputation, and 
he had been tampered with in private by my lord ; 
Mountain the trader proved, upon inquiry, to be 
another of the same kidney ; the errand they were 
all gone upon, being the recovery of ill-gotten treas- 
ures, offered in itself a very strong incentive to 
foul play ; and the character of the country where 
they journeyed promised impunity to deeds of 
blood. Well : it is true I had all these thoughts 
and fears, and guesses of the Master’s fate. But 
you are to consider I was the same man that sought 
to dash him from the bulwarks of a ship in the 
mid-sea; the same that, a little before, very im- 
piously but sincerely offered God a bargain, seek- 
ing to hire God to be my bravo. It is true again 
that I had a good deal melted toward our enemy. 
But this I always thought of as a weakness of the 
flesh and even culpable ; my mind remaining steady 
and quite bent against him. True yet again, that 
it was one thing to assume on my own shoulders 
the guilt and danger of a criminal attempt, and 
another to stand by and see my lord imperil and 
besmirch himself. But this was the very ground 


3 12 


THE MASTER 


of my inaction. For (should I anyway stir in the 
business) I might fail indeed to save the Master, 
but I could not miss to make a by-word of my 
lord. 

Thus it was that I did nothing; and upon the 
same reasons, I am still strong to justify my course. 
We lived meanwhile in Albany, but though alone 
together in a strange place, had little traffic beyond 
formal salutations. My lord had carried with him 
several introductions to chief people of the town 
and neighbourhood; others he had before encoun- 
tered in New York: with this consequence, that 
he went much abroad, and I am sorry to say was 
altogether too convivial in his habits. I was often 
in bed, but never asleep, when he returned; and 
there was scarce a night when he did not betray 
the influence of liquor. By day he would still 
lay upon me endless tasks, which he showed 
considerable ingenuity to fish up and to renew, 
in the manner of Penelope’s web. I never re- 
fused, as I say, for I was hired to do his bid- 
ding; but I took no pains to keep my penetration 
under a bushel, and would sometimes smile in his 
face. 

“ I think I must be the devil and you Michael 
Scott,” I said to him one day. “ I have bridged 
Tweed and split the Eildons; and now you set 
me to the rope of sand.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 313 

He looked at me with shining eyes and looked 
away again, his jaw chewing; but without words. 

“ Well, well, my lord,” said I, “ your will is my 
pleasure. I will do this thing for the fourth time ; 
but I would beg of you to invent another task 
against to-morrow, for by my troth, I am weary 
of this one.” 

“ You do not know what you are saying,” re- 
turned my lord, putting on his hat and turning his 
back to me. “ It is a strange thing you should 
take a pleasure to annoy me. A friend — but that 
is a different affair. It is a strange thing. I am 
a man that has had ill-fortune all my life through. 
I am still surrounded by contrivances. I am al- 
ways treading in plots,” he burst out. “ The whole 
world is banded against me.” 

“ I would not talk wicked nonsense if I were 
you,” said I ; “ but I will tell you what I would do 
— I would put my head in cold water, for you 
had more last night than you could carry.” 

“ Do ye think that? ” said he, with a manner of 
interest highly awakened. “ Would that be good 
for me? It ’s a thing I never tried.” 

“ I mind the days when you had no call to try, 
and I wish, my lord, that they were back again,” 
said I. “ But the plain truth is, if you continue to 
exceed, you will do yourself a mischief.” 

“ I don’t appear to carry drink the way I used 


THE MASTER 


34 

to,” said my lord. “ I get overtaken, Mackellar. 
But I will be more upon my guard.” 

“ That is what I would ask of you,” I replied. 
“ You are to bear in mind that you are Mr. Alex- 
ander’s father: give the bairn a chance to carry 
his name with some responsibility.” 

“ Ay, ay,” said he. “ Ye ’re a very sensible man, 
Mackellar, and have been long in my employ. But 
I think, if you have nothing more to say to me, 
I will be stepping. If you have nothing more to 
say? ” he added, with that burning, childish eager- 
ness that was now so common with the man. 

“ No, my lord, I have nothing more,” said I, 
drily enough. 

“ Then I think I will be stepping,” says my lord, 
and stood and looked at me fidgeting with his hat, 
which he had taken off again. “ I suppose you 
will have no errands? No? I am to meet Sir 
William Johnson, but I will be more upon my 
guard.” He was silent for a time, and then, smil- 
ing : “ Do you call to mind a place, Mackellar — 
it ’s a little below Engles — where the burn runs 
very deep under a wood of rowans ? I mind being 
there when I was a lad — dear, it comes over me 
like an old song ! — I was after the fishing, and 
I made a bonny cast. Eh, but I was happy. I 
wonder, Mackellar, why I am never happy now ? ” 

“ My lord,” said I, “ if you would drink with 


OF BALLANTRAE 


3 T 5 


more moderation you would have the better chance. 
It is an old by-word that the bottle is a false 
consoler.” 

“ No doubt,” said he, “ no doubt. Well, I think 
I will be going.” 

“ Good-morning, my lord,” said I. 

“ Good-morning, good-morning,” said he, and 
so got himself at last from the apartment. 

I give that for a fair specimen of my lord in the 
morning; and I must have described my patron 
very ill if the reader does not perceive a notable 
falling off. To behold the man thus fallen; to 
know him accepted among his companions for a 
poor, muddled toper, welcome (if he were wel- 
come at all) for the bare consideration of his 
title; *and to recall the virtues he had once dis- 
played against such odds of fortune : was not this 
a thing at once to rage and to be humbled at? 

In his cups, he was more excessive. I will give 
but the one scene, close upon the end, which is 
strongly marked upon my memory to this day, 
and at the time affected me almost with horror. 

I was in bed, lying there awake, when I heard 
him stumbling on the stair and singing. My lord 
had no gift of music, his brother had all the graces 
of the family, so that when I say singing, you are 
to understand a manner of high, carolling utter- 
ance, which was truly neither speech nor song. 


THE MASTER 


3 l & 

Something not unlike is to be heard upon the lips 
of children, ere they learn shame; from those of 
a man grown elderly, it had a strange effect. He 
opened the door with noisy precaution; peered 
in, shading his candle; conceived me to slumber; 
entered, set his light upon the table, and took off 
his hat. I saw him very plain; a high, feverish 
exultation appeared to boil in his veins, and he 
stood and smiled and smirked upon the candle. 
Presently he lifted up his arm, snapped his fin- 
gers, and fell to undress. As he did so, having 
once more forgot my presence, he took back to 
his singing; and now I could hear the words, 
which were those from the old song of the Twa 
Corbies endlessly repeated: 

And over his banes when they are bare 

The wind sail blaw for e verm air! 

I have said there was no music in the man. 
His strains had no logical succession except in so 
far as they inclined a little to the minor mode; 
but they exercised a rude potency upon the feel- 
ings, and followed the words, and signified the 
feelings of the singer with barbaric fitness. He 
took it first in the time and manner of a rant; 
presently this ill-favoured gleefulness abated, he 
began to dwell upon the notes more feelingly, and 
sank at last into a degree of maudlin pathos that 


OF BALLANTRAE 317 

was to me scarce bearable. By equal steps, the 
original briskness of his acts declined; and when 
he was stripped to his breeches, he sat on the 
bedside and fell to whimpering. I know noth- 
ing less respectable than the tears of drunken- 
ness, and turned my back impatiently on this poor 
sight. 

But he had started himself (I am to suppose) 
on that slippery descent of self-pity ; on the which, 
to a man unstrung by old sorrows and recent 
potations, there is no arrest except exhaustion. 
His tears continued to flow, and the man to sit 
there, three parts naked, in the cold air of the 
chamber. I twitted myself alternately with in- 
humanity and sentimental weakness, now half 
rising in my bed to interfere, now reading myself 
lessons of indifference and courting slumber, until, 
upon a sudden, the quantum mutatus ab illo shot 
into my mind; and calling to remembrance his 
old wisdom, constancy, and patience, I was over- 
borne with a pity almost approaching the passion- 
ate, not for my master alone but for the sons of 
man. 

At this I leaped from my place, went over to his 
side and laid a hand on his bare shoulder, which 
was cold as stone. He uncovered his face and 
showed it me all swollen and begrutten 1 like a 


1 Tear-marked. 


3 1 8 THE MASTER 

child’s; and at the sight my impatience partially 
revived. 

“ Think shame to yourself,” said I. “ This is 
bairnly conduct. I might have been snivelling my- 
self, if I had cared to swill my belly with wine. 
But I went to my bed sober like a man. Come: 
get into yours and have done with this pitiable 
exhibition.” 

“ Oh, Mackellar,” said he, “ my heart is wae ! ” 

“ Wae? ” cried I. “ For a good cause, I think. 
What words were these you sang as you came in ? 
Show pity to others, we then can talk of pity to 
yourself. You can be the one thing or the other, 
but I will be no party to half-way houses. If 
you ’re a striker, strike, and if you ’re a bleater, 
bleat!” 

“ Cry ! ” cries he, with a burst, “ that ’s it — 
strike ! that ’s talking ! Man, I ’ve stood it all 
too long. But when they laid a hand upon the 
child, when the child ’s threatened ” — his mo- 
mentary vigour whimpering off — “ my child, 
my Alexander!” — and he was at his tears 
again. 

I took him by the shoulders and shook him. 
“ Alexander ! ” said I. “ Do you even think of 
him? Not you! Look yourself in the face like a 
brave man, and you ’ll find you ’re but a self- 
deceiver. The wife, the friend, the child, they ’re 


OF BALLANTRAE 319 

all equally forgot, and you sunk in a mere log of 
selfishness.” 

“ Mackellar,” said he, with a wonderful return 
to his old manner and appearance, “ you may say 
what you will of me, but one thing I never was — 
I was never selfish.” 

“ I will open your eyes in your despite,” said 
I. “ How long have we been here? and how 
often have you written to your family? I think 
this is fhe first time you were ever separate : have 
you written at all ? Do they know if you are dead 
| or living?” 

I had caught him here too openly ; it braced his 
better nature; there was no more weeping, he 
thanked me very penitently, got to bed and was 
soon fast asleep; and the first thing he did the 
next morning was to sit down and begin a letter 
to my lady : a very tender letter it was too, though 
it was never finished. Indeed all communication 
with New York was transacted by myself; and it 
will be judged I had a thankless task of it. What 
to tell my lady and in what words, and how far 
to be false and how far cruel, was a thing that 
kept me often from my slumber. 

All this while, no doubt, my lord waited with 
growing impatiency for news of his accomplices. 
Harris, it is to be thought, had promised a high 
degree of expedition; the time was already over- 


320 


THE MASTER 


past when word was to be looked for; and sus- 
pense was a very evil counsellor to a man of an 
impaired intelligence. My lord’s mind throughout 
this interval dwelled almost wholly in the Wilder- 
ness, following that party with whose deeds he 
had so much concern. He continually conjured 
up their camps and progresses, the fashion of the 
country, the perpetration in a thousand different 
manners of the same horrid fact, and that con- 
sequent spectacle of the Master’s bones lying 
scattered in the wind. These private, guilty con- 
siderations I would continually observe to peep 
forth in the man’s talk, like rabbits from a hill. 
And it is the less wonder if the scene of his 
meditations began to draw him bodily. 

It is well known what pretext he took. Sir 
William Johnson had a diplomatic errand in these 
parts ; and my lord and I ( from curiosity, as was 
given out) went in his company. Sir William 
was well attended and liberally supplied. Hunters 
brought us venison, fish was taken for us daily in 
the streams, and brandy ran like water. We pro- 
ceeded by day and encamped by night in the 
military style; sentinels were set and changed; 
every man had his named duty; and Sir William 
was the spring of all. There was much in this 
that might at times have entertained me; but for 


OF BALLANTRAE 321 

our misfortune, the weather was extremely harsh, 
the days were in the beginning open, but the nights 
frosty from the first. A painful keen wind blew 
most of the time, so that we sat in the boat with 
blue fingers, and at night, as we scorched our 
faces at the fire, the clothes upon our back appeared 
to be of paper. A dreadful solitude surrounded 
our steps; the land was quite dispeopled, there 
was no smoke of fires, and save for a single boat 
of merchants on the second day, we met no trav- 
ellers. The season was indeed late, but this deser- 
tion of the waterways impressed Sir William 
himself; and I have heard him more than once 
express a sense of intimidation. “ I have come 
too late I fear ; they must have dug up the 
hatchet,” he said; and the future proved how 
justly he had reasoned. 

I could never depict the blackness of my soul 
upon this journey. I have none of those minds 
that are in love with the unusual : to see the winter 
coming and to lie in the field so far from any 
house, oppressed me like a nightmare; it seemed, 
indeed, a kind of awful braving of God’s power; 
and this thought, which I dare say only writes me 
down a coward, was greatly exaggerated by my 
private knowledge of the errand we were come 
upon. I was besides encumbered by my duties to 
Sir William, whom it fell upon me to entertain; 


J22 


THE MASTER 


for my lord was quite sunk into a state bordering 
on pervigilium , watching the woods with a rapt 
eye, sleeping scarce at all, and speaking sometimes 
not twenty words in a whole day. That which he 
said was still coherent; but it turned almost in- 
variably upon the party for whom he kept his crazy 
lookout. He would tell Sir William often, and 
always as if it were a new communication, that he 
had “ a brother somewhere in the woods,” and beg 
that the sentinels should be directed “ to inquire 
for him.” “ I am anxious for news of my brother,” 
he would say. And sometimes, when we were 
under way, he would fancy he spied a canoe far 
off upon the water or a camp on the shore, and 
exhibit painful agitation. It was impossible but 
Sir William should be struck with these singulari- 
ties; and at last he led me aside, and hinted his 
uneasiness. I touched my head and shook it ; quite 
rejoiced to prepare a little testimony against pos- 
sible disclosures. 

“ But in that case,” cries Sir William, “ is it 
wise to let him go at large?” 

44 Those that know him best,” said I, “ are per- 
suaded that he should be humoured.” 

44 Well, well,” replied Sir William, “ it is none 
of my affairs. But if I had understood, you would 
never have been here.” 

Our advance into this savage country had thus 


uneventfully proceeded for about a week, when we 
encamped for a night at a place where the river 
ran among considerable mountains clothed in wood. 
The fires were lighted on a level space at the water’s 
edge ; and we supped and lay down to sleep in the 
customary fashion. It chanced the night fell mur- 
derously cold; the stringency of the frost seized 
and bit me through my coverings, so that pain kept 
me wakeful; and I was afoot again before the 
peep of day, crouching by the fires or trotting to 
and fro at the stream’s edge, to combat the aching 
of my limbs. At last dawn began to break upon 
hoar woods and mountains, the sleepers rolled in 
their robes, and the boisterous river dashing among 
spears of ice. I stood looking about me, swaddled 
in my stiff coat of a bull’s fur, and the breath smok- 
ing from my scorched nostrils, when, upon a sud- 
den, a singular, eager cry rang from the borders 
of the wood. The sentries answered it, the sleepers 
sprang to their feet ; one pointed, the rest followed 
his direction with their eyes, and there, upon the 
edge of the forest and betwixt two trees, we be- 
held the figure of a man reaching forth his hands 
like one in ecstasy. The next moment he ran for- 
ward, fell on his knees at the side of the camp, 
and burst in tears. 

This was John Mountain, the trader, escaped 
from the most horrid perils; and his first word, 


3 2 4 


THE MASTER 


when he got speech, was to ask if we had seen 
Secundra Dass. 

“Seen what?” cries Sir William. 

“ No,” said I, “ we have seen nothing of him. 
Why?” 

“Nothing?” says Mountain. “Then I was 
right after all.” With that he struck his palm 
upon his brow. “ But what takes him back ? ” he 
cried. “ What takes the man back among dead 
bodies? There is some damned mystery here.” 

This was a word which highly aroused our curi- 
osity, but I shall be more perspicacious if I narrate 
these incidents in their true order. Here follows 
a narrative which I have compiled out of three 
sources, not very consistent in all points : 

First , a written statement by Mountain, in which 
everything criminal is cleverly smuggled out of 
view ; 

Second, two conversations with Secundra Dass; 
and, 

Third, many conversations with Mountain him- 
self, in which he was pleased to be entirely plain; 
for the truth is he regarded me as an accomplice. 

NARRATIVE OF THE TRADER, MOUNTAIN 

The crew that went up the river under the joint 
command of Captain Harris and the Master num- 


OF BALLANTRAE 


325 

bered in all nine persons, of whom (if I except 
Secundra Dass) there was not one that had not 
merited the gallows. From Harris downward the 
voyagers were notorious in that colony for des- 
perate, bloody-minded miscreants; some were re- 
puted pirates, the most hawkers of rum ; all ranters 
and drinkers ; all fit associates, embarking together 
without remorse, upon thiar treacherous and mur- 
derous design. I could not hear there was much 
discipline or any set captain in the gang; but 
Harris and four others, Mountain himself, two 
Scotchmen — Pinkerton and Hastie — and a man 
of the name of Hicks, a drunken shoemaker, put 
their heads together and agreed upon the course. 
In a material sense, they were well enough pro- 
vided ; and the Master, in particular, brought with 
him a tent where he might enjoy some privacy and 
shelter. 

Even this small indulgence told against him in 
the minds of his companions. But indeed he was 
in a position so entirely false (and even ridicu- 
lous) that all his habit of command and arts of 
pleasing were here thrown away. In the eyes of 
all, except Secundra Dass, he figured as a com- 
mon gull and designated victim; going uncon- 
sciously to death; yet he could not but suppose 
himself the contriver and the leader of the ex- 
pedition; he could scarce help but so conduct 


THE MASTER 


526 

himself; and at the least hint of authority or 
condescension, his deceivers would be laughing 
in their sleeves. I was so used to see and to 
conceive him in a high, authoritative attitude, that 
when I had conceived his position on this journey, 
I was pained and could have blushed. How soon 
he may have entertained a first surmise, we can- 
not know; but it was long, and the party had 
advanced into the Wilderness beyond the reach 
of any help, .ere he was fully awakened to the 
truth. 

It fell thus. Harris and some others had drawn 
apart into the woods for consultation, when they 
were startled by a rustling in the brush. They 
were all accustomed to the arts of Indian warfare, 
and Mountain had not only lived and hunted, but 
fought and earned some reputation, with the sav- 
ages. He could move in the woods without noise, 
and follow a trail like a hound; and upon the 
emergence of this alert, he was deputed by the 
rest to plunge into the thicket for intelligence. 
He was soon convinced there was a man in his 
close neighbourhood, moving with precaution but 
without art among the leaves and branches; and 
coming shortly to a place of advantage, he was 
able to observe Secundra Dass crawling briskly off 
with many backward glances. At this he knew 
not whether to laugh or cry; and his accomplices, 


OF BALLANTRAE 


327 

when he had returned and reported, were in much 
the same dubiety. There was now no danger of 
an Indian onslaught; but on the other hand, since 
Secundra Dass was at the pains to spy upon them, 
it was highly probable he knew English, and if he 
I knew English it was certain the whole of their 
design was in the Master’s knowledge. There was 
one singularity in the position. If Secundra Dass 
I knew and concealed his knowledge of English, 
Harris was a proficient in several of the tongues 
of India, and as his career in that part of the 
! world had been a great deal worse than profligate, 
he had not thought proper to remark upon the 
circumstance. Each side had thus a spy-hole on 
the counsels of the other. The plotters, so soon 
as this advantage was explained, returned to camp ; 
Harris, hearing the Hindustani was once more 
closeted with his master, crept to the side of the 
tent ; and the rest, sitting about the fire with their 
tobacco, awaited his report with impatience. When 
he came at last, his face was very black. He had 
overheard enough to confirm the worst of his 
suspicions. Secundra Dass was a good English 
scholar; he had been some days creeping and 
listening, the Master was now fully informed of 
the conspiracy, and the pair proposed on the mor- 
row to fall out of line at a carrying-place and 
plunge at a venture in the woods: preferring the 


THE MASTER 


328 

full risk of famine, savage beasts, and savage men 
to their position in the midst of traitors. 

What, then, was to be done? Some were for 
killing the Master on the spot ; but Harris assured 
them that would be a crime without profit, since 
the secret of the treasure must die along with him 
that buried it. Others were for desisting at once 
from the whole enterprise and making for New 
York; but the appetising name of treasure, and 
the thought of the long way they had already trav- 
elled dissuaded the majority. I imagine they were 
dull fellows for the most part. Harris, indeed, 
had some acquirements, Mountain was no fool, 
Hastie was an educated man; but even these had 
manifestly failed in life, and the rest were the 
dregs of colonial rascality. The conclusion they 
reached, at least, was more the offspring of greed 
and hope, than reason. It was to temporise, to be 
wary and watch the Master, to be silent and supply 
no further aliment to his suspicions, and to depend 
entirely (as well as I make out) on the chance 
that their victim was as greedy, hopeful, and irra- 
tional as themselves, and might, after all, betray 
his life and treasure. 

Twice, in the course of the next day, Secundra 
and the Master must have appeared to themselves 
to have escaped ; and twice they were circum- 
vented. The Master, save that the second time 


he grew a little pale, displayed no sign of disap- 
pointment, apologised for the stupidity with which 
he had fallen aside, thanked his recapturers as for 
a service, and rejoined the caravan with all his 
usual gallantry and cheerfulness of mien and bear- 
ing. But it is certain he had smelled a rat; for 
from thenceforth he and Secundra spoke only in 
each other’s ear, and Harris listened and shivered 
by the tent in vain. The same night it was an- 
nounced they were to leave the boats and proceed 
by foot: a circumstance which (as it put an end 
to the confusion of the portages) greatly lessened 
the chances of escape. 

And now there began between the two sides a 
silent contest, for life on the one hand, for riches 
on the other. They were now near that quarter 
pf the desert in which the Master himself must 
begin to play the part of guide; and using this 
for a pretext of prosecution, Harris and his men 
sat with him every night about the fire, and la- 
boured to entrap him into some admission. If he 
let slip his secret, he knew well it was the warrant 
for his death ; on the other hand, he durst not 
refuse their questions, and must appear to help 
them to the best of his capacity, or he practically 
published his mistrust. And yet Mountain assures 
me the man’s brow was never ruffled. He sat in 
the midst of these jackals, his life depending by 


330 


THE MASTER 


a thread, like some easy, witty householder at home 
by his own fire; an answer he had for everything 
— as often as not, a jesting answer; avoided 
threats, evaded insults; talked, laughed, and lis- 
tened with an open countenance; and, in short, 
conducted himself in such a manner as must have 
disarmed suspicion, and went near to stagger 
knowledge. Indeed Mountain confessed to me 
they would soon have disbelieved the captain’s 
story, and supposed their designated victim still 
quite innocent of their designs; but for the fact 
that he continued (however ingeniously) to give 
the slip to questions, and the yet stronger confirma- 
tion of his repeated efforts to escape. The last of 
these, which brought things to a head, I am now 
to relate. And first I should say that by this time 
the temper of Harris’s companions was utterly 
worn out; civility was scarce pretended; and for 
one very significant circumstance, the Master and 
Secundra had been (on some pretext) deprived of 
weapons. On their side, however, the threatened 
pair kept up the parade of friendship handsomely ; 
Secundra was all bows, the Master all smiles ; and 
on the last night of the truce he had even gone 
so far as to sing for the diversion of the com- 
pany. It was observed that he had also eaten 
with unusual heartiness, and drank deep : doubtless 
from design. 


OF BALLANTRAE 331 

At least, about three in the morning, he came 
out of the tent into the open air, audibly mourn- 
ing and complaining, with all the manner of a 
sufferer from surfeit. For some while, Secundra 
publicly attended on his patron, who at last be- 
came more easy, and fell asleep on the frosty 
ground behind the tent : the Indian returning 
within. Some time after, the sentry was changed ; 
had the Master pointed out to him, where he lay 
in what is called a robe of buffalo; and thence- 
forth kept an eye upon him (he declared) without 
remission. With the first of the dawn, a draught 
of wind came suddenly and blew open one side 
the corner of the robe; and with the same puff, 
the Master’s hat whirled in the air and fell some 
yards away. The sentry, thinking it remarkable 
the sleeper should not awaken, thereupon drew 
near; and the next moment, with a great shout, 
informed the camp their prisoner was escaped. 
He had left behind his Indian, who (in the first 
vivacity of the surprise) came near to pay the 
forfeit of his life, and was, in fact, inhumanly 
mishandled ; but Secundra, in the midst of threats 
and cruelties, stuck to it with extraordinary loy- 
alty, that he was quite ignorant of his master’s 
plans, which might indeed be true, and of the 
manner of his escape, which was demonstrably 
false. Nothing was therefore left to the conspira- 


33 2 


THE MASTER 


tors but to rely entirely on the skill of Mountain. 
The night had been frosty, the ground quite hard ; 
and the sun was no sooner up than a strong thaw 
set in. It was Mountain’s boast that few men 
could have followed that trail, and still fewer (even 
of the native Indians) found it. The Master had 
thus a long start before his pursuers had the scent, 
and he must have travelled with surprising energy 
for a pedestrian so unused, since it was near noon 
before Mountain had a view of him. At this con- 
juncture the trader was alone, all his companions 
following, at his own request, several hundred 
yards in the rear; he knew the Master was un- 
armed ; his heart was besides heated with the 
exercise and lust of hunting ; and seeing the quarry 
so close, so defenceless, and seemingly so fatigued, 
he vaingloriously determined to effect the capture 
with his single hand. A step or two further 
brought him to one margin of a little clearing; 
on the other, with his arms folded and his back 
to a huge stone, the Master sat. It is possible 
Mountain may have made a rustle, it is certain, 
at least, the Master raised his head and gazed 
directly at that quarter of the thicket where his 
hunter lay. “ I could not be sure *he saw me,” 
Mountain said ; “ he just looked my way like a 
man with his mind made up, and all the courage 
ran out of me like rum out of a bottle.” And 


OF BALLANTRAE 


333 


presently, when the Master looked away again, 
and appeared to resume those meditations in 
which he had sat immersed before the trader's 
coming, Mountain slunk stealthily back and re- 
turned to seek the help of his companions. 

And now began the chapter of surprises, for the 
scout had scarce informed the others of his dis- 
covery, and they were yet preparing their weapons 
for a rush upon the fugitive, when the man him- 
self appeared in their midst, walking openly and 
quietly, with his hands behind his back. 

“ Ah, men ! ” says he, on his beholding them. 
“ Here is a fortunate encounter. Let us get back 
to camp." 

Mountain had not mentioned his own weakness 
or the Master’s disconcerting gaze upon the thicket, 
so that (with all the rest) his return appeared 
spontaneous. For all that, a hubbub arose; oaths 
flew, fists were shaken, and guns pointed. 

“ Let us get back to camp," said the Master. “ I 
have an explanation to make, but it must be laid 
before you all. And in the meanwhile I would put 
up these weapons, one of which might very easily 
go off and blow away your hopes of treasure. I 
would not kill," says he, smiling, “ the goose with 
the golden eggs." 

The charm of his superiority once more tri- 
umphed ; and the party, in no particular order, set 


334 


THE MASTER 


off on their return. By the way, he found occa- 
sion to get a word or two apart with Mountain. 

“ You are a clever fellow and a bold,” says 
he, “ but I am not so sure that you are doing 
yourself justice. I would have you to consider 
whether you would not do better, ay, and safer, 
to serve me instead of serving so commonplace , 
a rascal as Mr. Harris. Consider of it,” he 
concluded, dealing the man a gentle tap upon 
the shoulder, “ and don’t be in haste. Dead 
or alive, you will find me an ill man to quarrel 
with.” 

When they were come back to the camp, where 
Harris and Pinkerton stood guard over Secundra, 
these two ran upon the Master like viragoes, and 
were amazed out of measure when they were 
bidden by their comrades to “ stand back and hear 
what the gentleman had to say.” The Master had 
not flinched before their onslaught; nor, at this 
proof of the ground he had gained, did he betray 
the least sufficiency. 

“ Do not let us be in haste,” says he. “ Meat 
first and public speaking after.” 

With that they made a hasty meal : and as soon 
as it was done, the Master, leaning on one elbow, 
began his speech. He spoke long, addressing him- 
self to each except Harris, finding for each (with 
the same exception) some particular flattery. He 


OF BALLANTRAE 


335 


called them “ bold, honest blades,” declared he had 
never seen a more jovial company, work better 
done, or pains more merrily supported. “ Well, 
then,” says he, “ some one asks me, Why the devil 
I ran away? But that is scarce worth answer, for 
I think you all know pretty well. But you know 
only pretty well : that is a point I shall arrive at 
presently, and be you ready to remark it when it 
comes. There is a traitor here: a double traitor: 
I will give you his name before I am done; and 
let that suffice for now. But here comes some 
other gentleman and asks me, Why in the devil I 
came back? Well, before I answer that question, 
I have one to put to you. It was this cur here, 
this Harris, that speaks Hindustani?” cries he, 
rising on one knee, and pointing fair at the man’s 
face, with a gesture indescribably menacing; and 
when he had been answered in the affirmative, 
“ Ah ! ” says he, “ then are all my suspicions veri- 
fied, and I did rightly to come back. Now, men, 
hear the truth for the first time.” Thereupon he 
launched forth in a long story, told with extra- 
ordinary skill, how he had all along suspected 
Harris, how he had found the confirmation of his 
fears, and how Harris must have misrepresented 
what passed between Secundra and himself. At 
this point he made a bold stroke with excellent 
effect. “ I suppose,” says he, “ you think you are 


THE MASTER 


336 

going shares with Harris, I suppose you think you 
will see to that yourselves; you would naturally 
not think so flat a rogue could cozen you. But 
have a care ! These half idiots have a sort of cun- 
ning, as the skunk has its stench; and it may be 
news to you that Harris has taken care of himself 
already. Yes, for him the treasure is all money in 
the bargain. You must find it or go starve. But 
he has been paid beforehand ; my brother paid him 
to destroy me; look at him, if you doubt — look 
at him, grinning and gulping, a detected thief ! ” 
Thence, having made this happy impression, he 
explained how he had escaped, and thought better 
of it, and at last concluded to come back, lay the 
truth before the company, and take his chance 
with them once more: persuaded as he was, they 
would instantly depose Harris and elect some other 
leader. “ There is the whole truth,” said he : “ and 
with one exception, I put myself entirely in your 
hands. What is the exception? There he sits,” 
he cried, pointing once more to Harris ; “ a man 
that has to die! Weapons and conditions are all 
one to me; put me face to face with him, and if 
you give me nothing but a stick, in five minutes 
I will show you a sop of broken carrion, fit for 
dogs to roll in.” 

It was dark night when he made an end; they 
had listened in almost perfect silence; but the fire- 


OF BALLANTRAE 


337 

light scarce permitted any one to judge, from the 
look of his neighbours, with what result of per- 
suasion or conviction. Indeed, the Master had set 
himself in the brightest place, and kept his face 
there, to be the centre of men’s eyes: doubtless 
on a profound calculation. Silence followed for 
awhile, and presently the whole party became in- 
volved in disputation : the Master lying on his 
back, with his hands knit under his head and one 
knee flung across the other, like a person uncon- 
cerned in the result. And here, I dare say, his 
bravado carried him too far and prejudiced his 
case. At least, after a cast or two back and for- 
ward, opinion settled finally against him. It ’s 
j possible he hoped to repeat the business of the 
pirate ship, and be himself, perhaps, on hard 
enough conditions, elected leader ; and things went 
so far that way, that Mountain actually threw out 
the proposition. But the rock he split upon was 
Hastie. This fellow was not well liked, being sour 
and slow, with an ugly, glowering disposition, 
but he had studied some time for the church at 
Edinburgh College, before ill-conduct had de- 
stroyed his prospects, and he now remembered 
and applied what he had learned. Indeed he had 
not proceeded very far, when the Master rolled 
carelessly upon one side, which was done (in 
Mountain’s opinion) to conceal the beginnings of 


33 s THE MASTER 

despair upon his countenance. Hastie dismissed 
the most of what they had heard as nothing to 
the matter; what they wanted was the treasure. 
All that was said of Harris might be true, and 
they would have to see to that in time. But what 
had that to do with the treasure? They had heard 
a vast of words; but the truth was just this, that 
Mr. Durie was damnably frightened and had sev- 
eral times run off. Here he was — whether caught 
or come back was all one to Hastie : the point was 
to make an end of the business. As for the talk 
of deposing and electing captains, he hoped they 
were all free men and could attend their own 
affairs. That was dust flung in their eyes, and 
so was the proposal to fight Harris. “ He shall 
fight no one in this camp, I can tell him that,” 
said Hastie. “We had trouble enough to get 
his arms away from him, and we should look 
pretty fools to give them back again. But if it ’s 
excitement the gentleman is after, I can supply 
him with more than perhaps he cares about. For 
I have no intention to spend the remainder of 
my life in these mountains; already I have been 
too long; and I propose that he should imme- 
diately tell us where that treasure is, or else im- 
mediately be shot. And there,” says he, producing 
his weapon, “ there is the pistol that I mean to 
use.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 339 

“ Come, I call you a man,” cries the Master, 
sitting up and looking at the speaker with an air 
of admiration. 

“ I did n’t ask you to call me anything,” returned 
Hastie ; “ which is it to be ? ” 

“ That ’s an idle question,” said the Master. 
“ Needs must when the devil drives. The truth 
is, we are within easy walk of the place, and I will 
show it you to-morrow.” 

With that, as if all were quite settled, and settled 
exactly to his mind, he walked off to his tent, 
whither Secundra had preceded him. 

I cannot think of these last turns and wriggles 
of my old enemy except with admiration; scarce 
even pity is mingled with the sentiment, so strongly 
the man supported, so boldly resisted his misfor- 
tunes. Even at that hour, when he perceived him- 
self quite lost, when he saw he had but effected 
an exchange of enemies, and overthrown Harris 
to set Hastie up, no sign of weakness ap- 
peared in his behaviour, and he withdrew to his 
tent, already determined (I must suppose) upon 
affronting the incredible hazard of his last expe- 
dient, with the same easy, assured, genteel ex- 
pression and demeanour as he might have left 
a theatre withal to join a supper of the wits. 
But doubtless within, if we could see there, his 
soul trembled. 


340 


THE MASTER 


Early in the night, word went about the camp 
that he was sick; and the first thing the next 
morning he called Hastie to his side, and inquired 
most anxiously if he had any skill in medicine. 
As a matter of fact, this was a vanity of that 
fallen divinity student’s, to which he had cunningly 
addressed himself. Hastie examined him ; and 
being flattered, ignorant, and highly suspicious, 
knew not in the least whether the man was sick 
or malingering. In this state, he went forth again 
to his companions; and (as the thing which would 
give himself most consequence either way) an- 
nounced that the patient was in a fair way to 
die. 

“ For all that,” he added with an oath, “ and 
if he bursts by the wayside, he must bring us this 
morning to the treasure.” 

But there were several in the camp (Mountain 
among the number) whom this brutality revolted. 
They would have seen the Master pistol’d, or pis- 
tol’d him themselves, without the smallest senti- 
ment of pity; but they seem to have been touched 
by his gallant fight and unequivocal defeat the 
night before ; perhaps, too, they were even already 
beginning to oppose themselves to their new leader : 
at least, they now declared that (if the man was 
sick) he should have a day’s rest in spite of Hastie’s 
teeth. 


OF BALLANTRAE 341 

The next morning he was manifestly worse, and 
Hastie himself began to display something of 
humane concern, so easily does even the pretence 
of doctoring awaken sympathy. The third, the 
Master called Mountain and Hastie to the ten t, 
announced himself to be dying, gave them full 
particulars as to the position of the cache, and 
begged them to set out incontinently on the quest, 
so that they might see if he deceived them, and 
(if they were at first unsuccessful) he should be 
able to correct their error. 

But here arose a difficulty on which he doubtless 
counted. None of these men would trust another, 
none would consent to stay behind. On the other 
hand, although the Master seemed extremely low, 
spoke scarce above a whisper, and lay much of the 
time insensible, it was still possible it was a fraudu- 
lent sickness; and if all went treasure-hunting, it 
might prove they had gone upon a wild-goose chase, 
and return to find their prisoner flown. They con- 
cluded, therefore, to hang idling round the camp, 
alleging sympathy to their reason; and certainly, 
so mingled are our dispositions, several were sin- 
cerely (if not very deeply) affected by the natural 
peril of the man whom they callously designed to 
murder. In the afternoon, Hastie was called to the 
bedside to pray: the which (incredible as it must 
appear) he did with unction; about eight at night, 


34 * 


THE MASTER 


the wailing of Secundra announced that all was 
over ; and before ten, the Indian, with a link stuck 
in the ground, was toiling at the grave. Sun- 
rise of next day beheld the Master’s burial, all 
hands attending with great decency of demeanour ; 
and the body was laid in the earth wrapped in 
a fur robe, with only the face uncovered; which 
last was of a waxy whiteness, and had the 
nostrils plugged according to some oriental habit 
of Secundra’s. No sooner was the grave filled 
than the lamentations of the Indian once more 
struck concern to every heart ; and it appears 
this gang of murderers, so far from resenting 
his outcries, although both distressful and (in 
such a country) perilous to their own safety, 
roughly but kindly endeavoured to console 
him. 

But if human nature is even in the worst of men 
occasionally kind, it is still, and before all things, 
greedy; and they soon turned from the mourner 
to their own concerns. The cache of the treasure 
being hard by, although yet unidentified, it was 
concluded not to break camp ; and the day passed, 
on the part of the voyagers, in unavailing explora- 
tion of the woods, Secundra the while lying on his 
master’s grave. That night they placed no senti- 
nel, but lay all together about the fire, in the cus- 
tomary woodman fashion, the heads outward, like 


OF BALLANTRAE 343 

the spokes of a wheel. Morning found them in 
the same disposition ; only Pinkerton, who lay on 
Mountain’s right, between him and Hastie, had (in 
the hours of darkness) been secretly butchered, and 
there lay, still wrapped as to his body in his mantle, 
but offering above that ungodly and horrific spec- 
tacle of the scalped head. The gang were that 
morning as pale as a company of phantoms, for 
the pertinacity of Indian war (or, to speak more 
correctly, Indian murder) was well known to all. 
But they laid the chief blame on their unsentinel’d 
posture; and fired with the neighbourhood of the 
treasure, determined to continue where they were. 
Pinkerton was buried hard by the Master; the 
survivors again passed the day in exploration, and 
returned in a mingled humour of anxiety and hope, 
being partly certain they were now close on the 
discovery of what they sought, and on the other 
hand (with the return of darkness) were infected 
with the fear of Indians. Mountain was the first 
sentry; he declares he neither slept nor yet sat 
down, but kept his watch with a perpetual and 
straining vigilance, and it was even with uncon- 
cern that (when he saw by the stars his time was 
up) he drew near the fire to waken his successor. 
This man (it was Hicks the shoemaker) slept on 
the lee side of the circle, something farther off in 
consequence than those to windward, and in a 


344 


THE MASTER 


place darkened by the blowing smoke. Mountain 
stooped and took him by the shoulder; his hand 
was at once smeared by some adhesive wetness; 
and (the wind at the moment veering) the fire- 
light shone upon the sleeper and showed him, like 
Pinkerton, dead and scalped. 

It was clear they had fallen in the hands of one 
of those matchless Indian bravos, that will some- 
times follow a party for days, and in spite of in- 
defatigable travel and unsleeping watch, continue 
to keep up with their advance and steal a scalp 
at every resting-place. Upon this discovery, the 
treasure-seekers, already reduced to a poor half- 
dozen, fell into mere dismay, seized a few neces- 
saries, and deserting the remainder of their goods, 
fled outright into the forest. Their fire, they left 
still burning, and their dead comrade unburied. 
All day they ceased not to flee, eating by the way, 
from hand to mouth; and since they feared to 
sleep, continued to advance at random even in 
the hours of darkness. But the limit of man’s 
endurance is soon reached ; when they rested 
at last, it was to sleep profoundly; and when 
they woke, it was to find that the enemy was 
still upon their heels, and death and mutilation 
had once more lessened and deformed their 
company. 

By this, they had become light-headed, they had 


OF BALLANTRAE 


345 

quite missed their path in the Wilderness, their 
stores were already running low. With the further 
horrors, it is superfluous that I should swell this 
narrative, already too prolonged. Suffice it to say, 
that when at length a night passed by innocuous, 
and they might ‘breathe again in the hope that the 
murderer had at last desisted from pursuit, Moun- 
tain and Secundra were alone. The trader is firmly 
persuaded their unseen enemy was some warrior 
of his own acquaintance, and that he himself was 
spared by favour. The mercy extended to Secun- 
dra he explains on the ground that the East Indian 
was thought to be insane; partly from the fact 
that, through all the horrors of the flight and 
while others were casting away their very food 
and weapons, Secundra continued to stagger for- 
ward with a mattock on his shoulder; and partly 
because, in the last days and with a great degree 
of heat and fluency, he perpetually spoke with him- 
self in his own language. But he was sane enough 
when it came to English. 

“You think he will be gone quite away?” he 
asked, upon their blest awakening in safety. 

“ I pray God so, I believe so, I dare to believe 
so,” Mountain had replied almost with incoher- 
ence, as he described the scene to me. 

And indeed he was so much distempered that 
until he met us, the next morning, he could scarce 


346 THE MASTER 

be certain whether he had dreamed, or whether it 
was a fact, that Secundra had thereupon turned 
directly about and returned without a word upon 
their footprints, setting his face for these wintry 
and hungry solitudes, along a path whose every 
stage was mile-stoned with a mutilated corpse. 


OF BALLANTRAE 347 


THE JOURNEY IN THE 

WILDERNESS — Concluded 

M OUNTAIN’S story, as it was laid be- 
fore Sir William Johnson and my lord, 
was shorn, of course, of all the earlier 
particulars, and the expedition described to have 
proceeded uneventfully, until the Master sickened. 
But the latter part was very forcibly related, the 
speaker visibly thrilling to his recollections; and 
our then situation, on the fringe of the same 
desert, and the private interests of each, gave him 
an audience prepared to share in his emotions. 
For Mountain’s intelligence not only changed the 
world for my Lord Durrisdeer, but materially 
affected the designs of Sir William Johnson. 

These I find I must lay more at length before 
the reader. Word had reached Albany of dubious 
import; it had been rumoured some hostility was 
to be put in act; and the Indian diplomatist had 
thereupon sped into the Wilderness, even at the 
approach of winter, to nip that mischief in the 
bud. Here, on the borders, he learned that he was 
come too late; and a difficult choice was thus 


THE MASTER 


348 

presented to a man (upon the whole) not any more 
bold than prudent. His standing with the painted 
braves may be compared to that of my Lord Presi- 
dent Culloden among the chiefs of our own High- 
landers at the ’forty-five; that is as much as tc 
say, he was, to these men, reason’s only speaking- 
trumpet, and counsels of peace and moderation, 
if they were to prevail at all, must prevail singly 
through his influence. If, then, he should return, 
the province must lie open to all the abominable 
tragedies of Indian war — the houses blaze, the 
wayfarer be cut off, and the men of the woods 
collect their usual disgusting spoil of human scalps. 
On the other side, to go further forth, to risk so 
small a party deeper in the desert, to carry words 
of peace among warlike savages already rejoicing 
to return to war: here was an extremity from 
which it was easy to perceive his mind revolted. 

“ I have come too late,” he said more than once, 
and would fall into a deep consideration, his head 
bowed in his hands, his foot patting the ground. 

At length he raised his face and looked upon us, 
that is to say, upon my lord, Mountain, and my- 
self, sitting close round a small fire, which had 
been made for privacy in one corner of the 
camp. 

“ My lord, to be quite frank with you, I find 
myself in two minds,” said he. “ I think it very 


OF BALLANTRAE 349 

needful I should go on, but not at all proper I 
should any longer enjoy the pleasure of your com- 
pany. We are here still upon the water-side; and 
I think the risk to southward no great matter. 
Will not yourself and Mr. Mackellar take a single 
boat’s crew and return to Albany ? ” 

My lord, I should say, had listened to Moun- 
tain’s narrative regarding him throughout with a 
painful intensity of gaze; and since the tale con- 
cluded, had sat as in a dream. There was some- 
thing very daunting in his look; something to my 
eyes not rightly human ; the face, lean, and dark* 
and aged, the mouth painful, the teeth disclosed 
in a perpetual rictus; the eyeball swimming clear 
of the lids upon a field of blood-shot white. I 
could not behold him myself without a jarring irri- 
tation, such as (I believe) is too frequently the 
uppermost feeling on the sickness of those dear 
to us. Others, I could not but remark, were 
scarce able to support his neighbourhood — Sir 
William eviting to be near him, Mountain dodg- 
ing his eye, and, when he met it, blenching and 
halting in his story. At this appeal, however, 
my lord appeared to recover his command upon 
himself. 

“ To Albany? ” said he, with a good voice. 

“ Not short of it, at least,” replied Sir William.. 
“ There is no safety nearer hand.” 


35 ° 


THE MASTER 


“ I would be very sweir 1 to return/’ says my 
lord. “ I am not afraid — of Indians,” he added, 
with a jerk. 

“ I wish that I could say so much,” returned 
Sir William, smiling; “although, if any man 
durst say it, it should be myself. But you are to 
keep in view my responsibility, and that as the voy- 
age has now become highly dangerous, and your 
business — if you ever had any,” says he, “ brought 
quite to a conclusion by the distressing family in- 
telligence you have received, I should be hardly 
justified if I even suffered you to proceed, and 
run the risk of some obloquy if anything re- 
grettable should follow.” 

My lord turned to Mountain. “ What did he 
pretend he died of?” he asked. 

“ I don’t think I understand your honour,” said 
the trader, pausing, like a man very much affected, 
in the dressing of some cruel frost-bites. 

For a moment my lord seemed at a full stop; 
and then, with some irritation, “ I ask you what he 
died of. Surely that ’s a plain question,” said he. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” said Mountain. “ Hastie 
even never knew. He seemed to sicken natural, 
and just pass away.” 

“ There it is, you see ! ” concluded my lord, turn- 
ing to Sir William. 


Unwilling. 


OF BALLANTRAE 351 

“ Your lordship is too deep for me,” replied 
Sir William. 

“Why,” says my lord, “this is a matter of 
I succession ; my son’s title may be called in doubt ; 
and the man being supposed to be dead of nobody 
can tell what, a great deal of suspicion would be 
naturally roused.” 

“ But, God damn me, the man ’s buried ! ” cried 
Sir William. 

“ I will never believe that,” returned my lord, 
painfully trembling. “I’ll never believe it!” he 
cried again, and jumped to his feet. “ Did he 
look dead?” he asked of Mountain. 

“ Look dead ? ” repeated the trader. “ He looked 
white. Why, what would he be at? I tell you, 
I put the sods upon him.” 

My lord caught Sir William by the coat with 
a hooked hand. “ This man has the name of my 
brother,” says he, “ but it ’s well understood that 
he was never canny.” 

“ Canny? ” says Sir William. “ What is that? ” 

• “ He ’s not of this world,” whispered my lord, 
“ neither him nor the black deil that serves him. 
I have struck my sword throughout his vitals,” 
he cried, “ I have felt the hilt dirl 1 on his breast- 
bone, and the hot blood spirt in my very face, 
time and again, time and again ! ” he repeated, 
1 Ring. 


THE MASTER 


35 2 

with a gesture indescribable. “ But he was never 
dead for that,” said he, and I sighed aloud. “ Why 
should I think he was dead now? No, not till I 
see him rotting,” says he. 

Sir William looked across at me, with a long 
face. Mountain forgot his wounds, staring and 
gaping. 

“ My lord,” said I, “ I wish you would collect 
your spirits.” But my throat was so dry, and my 
own wits so scattered, I could add no more. 

“ No,” says my lord, “ it ’s not to be supposed 
that he would understand me. Mackellar does, 
for he kens all, and has seen him buried before now. 
This is a very good servant to me, Sir William, 
this man Mackellar; he buried him with his own 
hands — he and my father — by the light of two 
siller candlesticks. The other man is a familiar 
spirit ; he brought him from Coromandel. I would 
have told ye this long syne, Sir William, only it 
was in the family.” These last remarks he made 
with a kind of a melancholy composure, and his 
time of aberration seemed to pass away. “ You 
can ask yourself what it all means,” he proceeded. 
“ My brother falls sick, and dies, and is buried, 
as so they say; and all seems very plain. But 
why did the familiar go back? I think ye must 
see for yourself it ’s a point that wants some 
clearing.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 353 

“ I will be at your service, my lord, in half a 
minute/’ said Sir William, rising. “ Mr. Mackel- 
lar, two words with you,” and he led me without 
the camp, the frost crunching in our steps, the 
trees standing at our elbow hoar with frost, even 
as on that night in the Long Shrubbery. “ Of 
course, this is midsummer madness ? ” said Sir 
William, so soon as we were gotten out of hearing. 

“ Why, certainly,” said I. “ The man is mad. 
I think that manifest.” 

“ Shall I seize and bind him ? ” asked Sir Wil- 
liam. “ I will upon your authority. If these are 
all ravings, that should certainly be done.” 

I looked down upon the ground, back at the 
camp with its bright fires and the folk watching 
us, and about me on the woods and mountains; 
there was just the one way that I could not look, 
and that was in Sir William’s face. 

“ Sir William,” said I at last, “ I think my lord 
not sane, and have long thought him so. But 
there are degrees in madness; and whether he 
should be brought under restraint — Sir William, 
I am no fit judge,” I concluded. 

“ I will be the judge,” said he. “ I ask for 
facts. Was there, in all that jargon, any word 
of truth or sanity ? Do you hesitate ? ” he asked. 
“ Am I to understand you have buried this gen- 
tleman before ? ” 


354 


THE MASTER 


“ Not buried,” said I ; and then, taking up 
courage at last, “ Sir William,” said I, “ unless I 
were to tell you a long story, which much con- 
cerns a noble family (and myself not in the least), 
it would be impossible to make this matter clear 
to you. Say the word, and I will do it, right or 
wrong. And, at any rate, I will say so much, 
that my lord is not so crazy as he seems. This is 
a strange matter, into the tail of which you are 
unhappily drifted.” 

“ I desire none of your secrets,” replied Sir 
William ; “ but I will be plain at the risk of in- 
civility, and confess that I take little pleasure in 
my present company.” 

“ I would be the last to blame you,” said I, “ for 
that.” 

“ I have not asked either for your censure or 
your praise, sir,” returned Sir William. “ I de- 
sire simply to be quit of you; and to that effect, 
I put a boat and complement of men at your 
disposal.” 

“ This is fairly offered,” said I, after reflec- 
tion. “ But you must suffer me to say a word 
upon the other side. We have a natural curiosity 
to learn the truth of this affair; I have some of 
it myself; my lord (it is very plain) has but 
too much. The matter of the Indian’s return is 
enigmatical.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 355 

“ I think so myself,” Sir William interrupted, 
“ and I propose (since I go in that direction) to 
probe it to the bottom. Whether or not the man 
has gone like a dog to die upon his master’s grave, 
his life, at least, is in great danger, and I pro- 
pose, if I can, to save it. There is nothing against 
his character ? ” 

“ Nothing, Sir William,” I replied. 

“ And the other ? ” he said. “ I have heard 
my lord, of course; but, from the circumstances 
of his servant’s loyalty, I must suppose he had 
some noble qualities.” 

“ You must not ask me that! ” I cried. “ Hell 
may have noble flames. I have known him a score 
of years, and always hated, and always admired, 
and always slavishly feared him.” 

“ I appear to intrude again upon your secrets,” 
said Sir William, “ believe me, inadvertently. 
Enough that I will see the grave, and (if possible) 
rescue the Indian. Upon these terms, can you 
persuade your master to return to Albany?” 

“ Sir William,” said I, “ I will tell you how it 
is. You do not see my lord to advantage; it will 
seem even strange to you that I should love him ; 
but I do, and I am not alone. If he goes back to 
Albany, it must be by force, and it will be the 
death-warrant of his reason, and perhaps his life. 
That is my sincere belief ; but I am in your hands. 


THE MASTER 


356 

and ready to obey, if you will assume so much 
responsibility as to command.” 

“ I will have no shred of responsibility ; it is 
my single endeavour to avoid the same,” cried Sir 
William. “ You insist upon following this jour- 
ney up ; and be it so ! I wash my hands of the 
whole matter.” 

With which word, he turned upon his heel and 
gave the order to break camp; and my lord, who 
had been hovering near by, came instantly to my 
side. 

“ Which is it to be? ” said he. 

“ You are to have your way,” I answered. 
“ You shall see the grave.” 

The situation of the Master’s grave was, be- 
tween guides, easily described ; it lay, indeed, 
beside a chief landmark of the Wilderness, a certain 
range of peaks, conspicuous by their design and 
altitude, And the source of many brawling tribu- 
taries to that inland sea, Lake Champlain. It was 
therefore possible to strike for it direct, instead 
of following back the blood-stained trail of the 
fugitives, and to cover, in some sixteen hours of 
march, a distance which their perturbed wander- 
ings had extended over more than sixty. Our 
boats we left under a guard upon the river; it 
was, indeed, probable we should return to find then 


OF B ALLANTRAE 


357 


frozen fast; and the small equipment with which 
we set forth upon the expedition, included not only 
an infinity of furs to protect us from the cold, but 
an arsenal of snow-shoes to render travel possible, 
when the inevitable snow should fall. Consider- 
able alarm was manifested at our departure; the 
march was conducted with soldierly precaution, 
the camp at night sedulously chosen and patrolled ; 
and it was a consideration of this sort that ar- 
rested us, the second day, within not many hun- 
dred yards of our destination — the night being 
already imminent, the spot in which we stood 
well qualified to be a strong camp for a party of 
our numbers; and Sir William, therefore, on a 
sudden thought, arresting our advance. 

Before us was the high range of mountains, 
toward which we had been all day deviously 
drawing near. From the first light of the dawn, 
their silver peaks had been the goal of our advance 
across a tumbled lowland forest, thrid with rough 
streams, and strewn with monstrous boulders; the 
peaks (as I say) silver, for already at the higher 
altitudes the snow fell nightly; but the woods and 
the low ground only breathed upon with frost. 
All day heaven had been charged with ugly va- 
pours, in the which the sun swam and glimmered 
like a shilling piece ; all day the wind blew on our 
left cheek, barbarous cold, but very pure to breathe. 


358 THE MASTER 

With the end of the afternoon, however, the wind 
fell; the clouds, being no longer reinforced, were 
scattered or drunk up; the sun set behind us with 
some wintry splendour, and the white brow of 
the mountains shared its dying glow. 

It was dark ere we had supper; we ate in si- 
lence, and the meal was scarce despatched before 
my lord slunk from the fireside to the margin of 
the camp; whither I made haste to follow him. 
The camp was on high ground, overlooking a 
frozen lake, perhaps a mile in its longest measure- 
ment; all about us, the forest lay in heights and 
hollows ; above rose the white mountains ; and 
higher yet, the moon rode in a fair sky. There 
was no breath of air; nowhere a twig creaked; 
and the sounds of our own camp were hushed 
and swallowed up in the surrounding stillness. 
Now that the sun and the wind were both gone 
down, it appeared almost warm, like a night of 
July: a singular illusion of the sense, when earth, 
air, and water were strained to bursting with the 
extremity of frost. 

My lord (or what I still continued to call by 
his loved name) stood with his elbow in one hand, 
and his chin sunk in the other, gazing before him 
on the surface of the wood. My eyes followed his, 
and rested almost pleasantly upon the frosted 
contexture of the pines, rising in moonlit hillocks, 


OF BALLANTRAE 359 

or sinking in the shadow of small glens. Hard 
by, I told myself, was the grave of our enemy, 
now gone where the wicked cease from troubling, 
the earth heaped for ever on his once so active 
limbs. I could not but think of him as somehow 
fortunate, to be thus done with man’s anxiety and 
weariness, the daily expense of spirit, and that 
daily river of circumstance to be swum through, 
at any hazard, under the penalty of shame or death. 
I could not but think how good was the end of 
that long travel ; and with that, my mind swung 
at a tangent to my lord. For was not my lord 
dead also? a maimed soldier, looking vainly for 
discharge, lingering derided in the line of battle? 
A kind man, I remembered him; wise, with a 
decent pride, a son perhaps too dutiful, a husband 
only too loving, one that could suffer and be silent, 
one whose hand I loved to press. Of a sudden, 
pity caught in my windpipe with a sob ; I could 
have wept aloud to remember and behold him; 
and standing thus by his elbow, under the broad 
moon, I prayed fervently either that he should 
be released, or I strengthened to persist in my 
affection. 

“ O God,” said I, “ this was the best man to 
me and to himself, and now I shrink from him. 
He did no wrong, or not till he was broke with 
sorr ows ; these are but his honourable wounds that 


THE MASTER 


360 

we begin to shrink from. 0 cover them up, O 
take him away, before we hate him!” 

I was still so engaged in my own bosom, when 
a sound broke suddenly upon the night. It was 
neither very loud, nor very near; yet, bursting as 
it did from so profound and so prolonged a silence, 
it startled the camp like an alarm of trumpets. 
Ere I had taken breath, Sir William was beside 
me, the main part of the voyagers clustered at 
his back, intently giving ear. Methought, as I 
glanced at them across my shoulder, there was a 
whiteness, other than moonlight, on their cheeks; 
and the rays of the moon reflected with a sparkle 
on the eyes of some, and the shadows lying black 
under the brows of others (according as they 
raised or bowed the head to listen) gave to the 
group a strange air of animation and anxiety. 
My lord was to the front, crouching a little forth, 
his hand raised as for silence: a man turned to 
stone. And still the sounds continued, breath- 
lessly renewed, with a precipitate rhythm. 

Suddenly Mountain spoke in a loud, broken 
whisper, as of a man relieved. “ I have it now,” 
he said ; and, as we all turned to hear him, “ the 
Indian must have known the cache,” he added. 
“ That is he — he is digging out the treasure.” 

“ Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Sir William. 
“ We were geese not to have supposed so much.” 


OF BALLANTRAE 361 

“ The only thing is,” Mountain resumed, “ the 
sound is very close to our old camp. And, again, 
I do not see how he is there before us, unless the 
man had wings ! ” 

“ Greed and fear are wings,” remarked Sir Wil- 
liam. “ But this rogue has given us an alert, and 
I have a notion to return the compliment. What 
say you, gentlemen, shall we have a moonlight 
hunt?” 

It was so agreed; dispositions were made to 
surround Secundra at his task; some of Sir Wil- 
liam's Indians hastened in advance; and a strong 
guard being left at our headquarters, we set forth 
along the uneven bottom of the forest ; frost crack- 
ling, ice sometimes loudly splitting underfoot; and 
overhead the blackness of pine-woods, and the 
broken brightness of the moon. Our way led down 
into a hollow of the land; and as we descended, 
the sounds diminished and had almost died away. 
Upon the other slope it was more open, only 
dotted with a few pines, and several vast and scat- 
tered rocks, that made inky shadows in the moon- 
light. Here the sounds began to reach us more 
distinctly ; we could now perceive the ring of iron, 
and more exactly estimate the furious degree of 
haste with which the digger plied his instrument. 
As we neared the top of the ascent, a bird or 
two winged aloft and hovered darkly in the 


THE MASTER 


362 

moonlight; and the next moment, we were gaz- 
ing through a fringe of trees upon a singular 
picture. 

A narrow plateau, overlooked by the white 
mountains, and encompassed nearer hand by 
woods, lay bare to the strong radiance of the 
moon. Rough goods, such as make the wealth 
of foresters, were sprinkled here and there upon 
the ground in meaningless disarray. About the 
midst a tent stood, silvered with frost; the door 
open, gaping on the black interior. At the one 
end of this small stage, lay what seemed the tat- 
tered remnants of a man. Without doubt we had 
arrived upon the scene of Harris’s encampment; 
there were the goods scattered in the panic of 
flight; it was in yon tent the Master breathed his 
last; and the frozen carrion that lay before us 
was the body of the drunken shoemaker. It was 
always moving to come upon the theatre of any 
tragic incident; to come upon it after so many 
days, and to find it (in the seclusion of a desert) 
still unchanged, must have impressed the mind of 
the most careless. And yet it was not that which 
struck us into pillars of stone; but the sight (which 
yet we had been half expecting) of Secundra, 
ankle deep in the grave of his late master. He had 
cast the main part of his raiment by, yet his frail 
arms and shoulders glistered in the moonlight with 


OF BALLANTRAE 363 

a copious sweat; his face was contracted with 
anxiety and expectation; his blows resounded on 
the grave, as thick as sobs ; and behind him, 
strangely deformed and ink-black upon the frosty 
ground, the creature’s shadow repeated and paro- 
died his swift gesticulations. Some night birds 
arose from the boughs upon our coming, and then 
settled back; but Secundra, absorbed in his toil, 
heard or heeded not at all. 

I heard Mountain whisper to Sir William : 
“ Good God, it ’s the grave ! He ’s digging him 
up ! ” It was what we had all guessed, and yet to 
hear it put in language thrilled me. Sir William 
violently started. 

“You damned sacrilegious hound!” he cried. 
“What’s this?” 

Secundra leaped in the air, a little breathless 
cry escaped him, the tool flew from his grasp, and 
he stood one instant staring at the speaker. The 
next, swift as an arrow, he sped for the woods 
upon the farther side; and the next again, throw- 
ing up his hands with a violent gesture of reso- 
lution, he had begun already to retrace his 
steps. 

“ Well, then, you come, you help ” he was 

saying. But by now my lord had stepped beside 
Sir William; the moon shone fair upon his face, 
and the words were still upon Secundra’s lips, 


THE MASTER 


364 

when he beheld and recognised his master’s enemy. 
“ Him ! ” he screamed, clasping his hands and 
shrinking on himself. 

“ Come, come,” said Sir William, “ there is none 
here to do you harm, if you be innocent; and if 
you be guilty, your escape is quite cut off. Speak, 
what do you here among the graves of the dead 
and the remains of the unburied?” 

“ You no murderer?” inquired Secundra. 
“You true man? You see me safe?” 

“I will see you safe if you be innocent,” re- 
turned Sir William. “ I have said the thing, and 
I see not wherefore you should doubt it.” 

“ There all murderers,” cried Secundra, “ that 
is why ! He kill — murderer,” pointing to Moun- 
tain ; “ there two hire-murderers,” — pointing to 
my lord and myself — “ all gallows-murderers ! 
Ah, I see you all swing in a rope. Now I go save 
the Sahib ; he see you swing in a rope. The Sahib,” 
he continued, pointing to the grave, “ he not dead. 
He bury, he not dead.” 

My lord uttered a little noise, moved nearer to 
the grave, and stood and stared in it. 

“ Buried and not dead? ” exclaimed Sir William. 
“ What kind of rant is this ? ” 

“ See, Sahib ! ” said Secundra. “ The Sahib and 
I alone with murderers; try all way to escape, 
no way good. Then try this way: good way 


OF BALLANTRAE 365 

in warm climate, good way in India; here in this 
dam cold place, who can tell ? I tell you pretty 
good hurry : you help, you light a fire, help 
rub.” 

“ What is the creature talking of?” cried Sir 
William. “ My head goes round.” 

“ I tell you I bury him alive,” said Secundra. 
“ I teach him swallow his tongue. Now dig him 
up pretty good hurry, and he not much worse. 
You light a fire.” 

Sir William turned to the nearest of his men. 
“ Light a fire,” said he. “ My lot seems to be 
cast with the insane.” 

“ You good man,” returned Secundra. “ Now 
I go dig the Sahib up.” 

He returned as he spoke to the grave, and re- 
sumed his former toil. My lord stood rooted, and 
I at my lord’s side: fearing I knew not what. 

The frost was not yet very deep, and presently 
the Indian threw aside his tool and began to scoop 
the dirt by handfuls. Then he disengaged a corner 
of a buffalo robe : and then I saw hair catch among 
his fingers ; yet a moment more, and the moon shone 
on something white. Awhile Secundra crouched 
upon his knees, scraping with delicate fingers, 
breathing with puffed lips; and when he moved 
aside I beheld the face of the Master wholly dis- 
engaged. It was deadly white, the eyes closed, 


3 66 THE MASTER 

the ears and nostrils plugged, the cheeks fallen, 
the nose sharp as if in death; but for all he had 
lain so many days under the £od, corruption had 
not approached him and (what strangely affected 
all of us) his lips and chin were mantled with a 
swarthy beard. 

“ My God ! ” cried Mountain, “ he was as smooth 
as a baby when we laid him there ! ” 

“ They say hair grows upon the dead,” ob- 
served Sir William, but his voice was thick and 
weak. 

Secundra paid no heed to our remarks, digging 
swift as a terrier, in the loose earth ; every moment, 
the form of the Master, swathed in his buffalo 
robe, grew more distinct in the bottom of that 
shallow trough; the moon shining strong, and the 
shadows of the standers-by, as they drew forward 
and back, falling and flitting over his emergent 
countenance. The sight held us with a horror 
not before experienced, I dared not look my lord 
in the face, but for as long as it lasted, I never 
observed him to draw breath; and a little in the 
background one of the men (I know not whom) 
burst into a kind of sobbing. 

“ Now,” said Secundra, “ you help me lift him 
out.” 

Of the flight of time I have no idea; it may 
have been three hours, and it may have been five, 


OF BALLANTRAE 367 

that the Indian laboured to reanimate his master’s 
body. One thing only I know, that it was still 
night, and the moon was not yet set, although it 
had sunk low, and now barred the plateau with 
long shadows, when Secundra uttered a small cry 
of satisfaction ; and, leaning swiftly forth, I thought 
I could myself perceive a change upon that icy 
countenance of the unburied. The next moment 
I beheld his eyelids flutter ; the next they rose en- 
tirely, and the week-old corpse looked me for a 
moment in the face. 

So much display of life I can myself swear to. 
I have heard from others that he visibly strove 
to speak, that his teeth showed in his beard, and 
that his brow was contorted as with an agony of 
pain and effort. And this may have been ; I know 
not, I was otherwise engaged. For, at that first 
disclosure of the dead man’s eyes, my Lord Dur- 
risdeer fell to the ground, and when I raised him 
up, he was a corpse. 


Day came, and still Secundra could not be per- 
suaded to desist from his unavailing efforts. Sir 
William, leaving a small party under my com- 
mand, proceeded on his embassy with the first 
light; and still the Indian rubbed the limbs and 
breathed in the mouth of the dead body. You 


THE MASTER 


368 

would think such labours might have vitalised a 
stone; but, except for that one moment (which 
was my lord’s death), the black spirit of the Mas- 
ter held aloof from its discarded clay ; and by about 
the hour of noon, even the faithful servant was 
at length convinced. He took it with unshaken 
quietude. 

“ Too cold,” said he, “ good way in India, no 
good here.” And, asking for some food, which he 
ravenously devoured as soon as it was set before 
him, he drew near to the fire and took his place at 
my elbow. In the same spot, as soon as he had 
eaten, he stretched himself out, and fell into a 
childlike slumber, from which I must arouse him, 
some hours afterward, to take his part as one of 
the mourners at the double funeral. It was the 
same throughout; he seemed to have outlived at 
once and with the same effort, his grief for his 
master and his terror of myself and Mountain. 

One of the men left with me was skilled in 
stone-cutting; and before Sir William returned 
to pick us up, I had chiselled on a boulder this in- 
scription, with a copy of which I may fitly bring 
my narrative to a close : 


OF BALLANTRAE 


3 6 9 


J. d., 

HEIR TO A SCOTTISH TITLE, 

A MASTER OF THE ARTS AND GRACES, 
ADMIRED IN EUROPE, ASIA, AMERICA, 

IN WAR AND PEACE, 

IN THE TENTS OF SAVAGE HUNTERS AND THE 
CITADELS OF KINGS, AFTER SO MUCH 
ACQUIRED, ACCOMPLISHED, AND 
ENDURED, LIES HERE FOR- 
GOTTEN. 


H. D., 

HIS BROTHER, 

AFTER A LIFE OF UNMERITED DISTRESS, 
BRAVELY SUPPORTED, 

DIED ALMOST IN THE SAME HOUR, 
AND SLEEPS IN THE SAME GRAVE 
WITH HIS FRATERNAL ENEMY. 


PHE PIETY OF HIS WIFE AND ONE OLD SEP 
VANT RAISED THIS STONE 
TO BOTH. 





































































♦ 












/ 



















THE MODERN 
STUDENT S LIBRARY 

Each volume edited with an introduction by a leading 
American authority 


This series is composed of such works as are conspicuous in the 
province of literature for their enduring influence. Every volume 
is recognized as essential to a liberal education and will tend to in- 
fuse a love for true literature and an appreciation of the qualities 
which cause it to endure. 


A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND 
MERRIMAC RIVERS 
By Henry David Thoreau 

With an Introduction by 
ODELL SHEPARD 

Professor of English at Trinity College 

“. . . Here was a man who stood with his head in the clouds, 
perhaps, but with his feet firmly planted on rubble and grit. He 
was true to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. Thoreau’s 
eminently practical thought was really concerned, in the last anal- 
ysis with definite human problems. The major question how to live 
was at the end of all his vistas.” 


EMERSON’S ESSAYS 

Selected and edited, with an Introduction, by 
ARTHUR HOBSON QUINN 

Professor of English and Dean of the College University of 
Pennsylvania 

“Among the shifting values in our literary history, Emerson stands 
secure. As a people we are rather prone to underestimate our native 
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among those who have been content to treat our literature as a by- 
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more apparent with time.” 


THE MODERN STUDENT’S LIBRARY 


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Selected and edited by 
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With the writings of these two remarkable essayists modern prose 
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND 
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With an Introduction by 
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Franklin and Edwards often sharply contrasted in thought are, 
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THE 

HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN 

By Sir Walter Scott 

With an Introduction by 
WILLIAM P. TRENT 

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Universally admitted one of the world’s greatest story-tellers, 
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THE ORDEAL OF 
RICHARD FEVEREL 
By George Meredith 

With an Introduction by 
FRANK W. CHANDLER 

Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati 

“The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,” published in 1859, was Mere- 
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story embodies in the most beautiful form the idea that in life the 
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MEREDITH’S 
ESSAY ON COMEDY 


With an Introduction, Notes, and Biographical Sketch by 
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Professor of English at Cornell University 

“Good comedies,” Meredith tells us, “are such rare productions 
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CRITICAL ESSAYS OF THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 


Selected and edited, with an Introduction, by 
RAYMOND M. ALDEN 

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The essays in this volume include those of Wordsworth, Copleston, 
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THE MODERN STUDENT’S LIBRARY 


ENGLISH POETS OF THE 
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While the text of the various poems is authentic, it is not bur- 
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This book is one of the most vivid and entertaining in the English 
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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 

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He says: “When I came to read the book the tenth or fifteenth 
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NINETEENTH CENTURY 
LETTERS 

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Contains letters from William Blake, William Wordsworth, 
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PAST AND PRESENT 


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These essays, the distilled wisdom of a great observer upon the 
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ADAM BEDE 

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Professor of English at Vassar College 

With the publication of “Adam Bede” in 1859, it was evident 
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THE RING AND THE BOOK 

By Robert Browning 

With an Introduction by 
FREDERICK MORGAN PADELFORD 

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“ ‘The Ring and the Book,’ ” says Dr. Padelford in his introduc- 
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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON’S 
ESSAYS 

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essays on the greatest themes that can occupy the mind of man. All 
reveal the complex, whimsical, humorous, romantic, imaginative, 
puritanical personality now known everywhere by the formula 
R. L. S. 

PENDENNIS 

By Thackeray 

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ROBERT MORSS LOVETT 

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By Thomas Hardy 


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“The Return of the Native” is probably Thomas Hardy’s great 
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;enius of the finished writer. It presents in the most remarkable 
ray Hardy’s interpretation of nature in which there is a perfect 
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Edited with an Introduction by 
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A careful and discriminating selection of the “Essays written vi 
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HISTORICAL ESSAYS 

By Lord Macaulay 

Selected with an Introduction by 
CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN 

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A group of the better-known historical essays which includes “John 
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SARTOR RESARTUS 

By Thomas Carlyle 

Edited with an Introduction by 
ASHLEY THORNDIKE 

Professor of English at Columbia University 

This “Nonsense on Clothes,” as Carlyle referred to it in one entry 
of his journal, reaches into all the human realm and is perhaps the 
greatest philosophical expression of Carlyle’s genius. Surely there 
is a power of pure thought which he has put into the mind of Pro- 
fessor Tempelsdroch and a charm of words which he has given him 
to speak which he has nowhere surpassed. 

A glossary in this edition will be of invaluable service to the 
student. 


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EVAN HARRINGTON 

By George Meredith 

With an Introduction by 
GEORGE F. REYNOLDS 

Professor of English Literature, University of Colorado 

Evan Harrington, one of the greatest demonstrations of George 
Meredith’s genius, is an ironic comment on English society and man- 
ners in the latter part of the last century, done with amazing pene- 
tration and the best of his humor. Especially it is a satire on the 
class relations. The hero, son and grandson of tailors, goes through 
life trying to conceal his parentage because of the contempt in which 
it is held. In its elements the novel is somewhat autobiographical 
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In the large, it reflects the struggle between spiritual and moral ideals 
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in the triumph of the spirit of sacrifice. 


THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE 

By Robert Louis Stevenson 

With an Introduction by 
H. S. CANBY 

Formerly Professor of English Literature at Yale University, and 
present editor of the New York Evening Post Literary Review 

Here is one of the most absorbing of Stevenson’s romances, full of 
the spice of adventure and exciting incident, the thrill of danger and 
the chill of fear; it is, beside, a powerful and subtle study of Scotch 
character of different types, and brings into being one of the most 
amazing of all the dramatis personae of romantic fiction. “The 
Master,” Stevenson wrote of his own creation, “is all I know of the 
devil.” Of the story he wrote while it was in the making, that it was 
“a tale of many years and countries, of the sea and the land, sav- 
agery and civilization.” 


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RUSKIN’S 

SELECTIONS AND ESSAYS 

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self.” Carlyle delighted in the “fierce lightning bolts” that Ruskin 
was “copiously and desperately pouring into the black world of 
anarchy all around him.” 

The present volume, by its wide selection from Ruskin’s writings, 
affords an unusual insight into this remarkable man’s interests and 
character. 


THE SCARLET LETTER 

By Nathaniel Hawthorne 

With an Introduction by 
STUART P. SHERMAN 

Professor of English at University of Illinois 

“ ‘The Scarlet Letter’ appears to be as safe from competitors 
as ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ or ‘Robinson Crusoe.’ It is recognized as 
the classical treatment of its particular theme. Its symbols and 
scenes of guilt and penitence — the red letter on the breast of Hester 
Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale on the scaffold — have fixed themselves 
in the memory of men like the figure of Crusoe bending over the 
footprints in the sand, and have become a part of the common stock 
of images like Christian facing the lions in the way. 

— 4M- 

CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 


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